


Shaggy Dog Story

by Camelittle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternative Universe - Modern Setting, Dogs, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Happy Ending, Humour, Light Angst, M/M, Merlioske-friendly, Minor Gwaine/Percival (Merlin), Minor Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Pining Arthur, Pining Merlin (Merlin), Surviving Quarantine, Vloggers, dog videos, labrador cavall, shaggy dog freya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26440075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Camelittle/pseuds/Camelittle
Summary: It’s the year 2020. The world is in lockdown, and Arthur is unable to work as a sports commentator while there is no sport being played. What’s worse, in the recent acrimonious divorce  from Sophia, he lost his flat in Mayfair, his Porsche and a large part of his dignity. But on the plus side, he gained Sophia’s labrador puppy, Cavall. As he comes to terms with his reduced social status, whiling away the days of the pandemic in a rented cottage in the country, he begins to realise that maybe he has got the better end of the deal. Especially when his destiny collides with that of his neighbour, a furloughed pharmacist with shaggy hair and an equally shaggy dog of his own.
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 136
Kudos: 176
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	1. Swapping Soph for Sofa

**Author's Note:**

> "shaggy-dog story" (phrase of "shaggy"): /ˌʃaɡɪˈdɒɡ stɔːri/. A long, rambling story or joke, typically one that is amusing only because it is absurdly inconsequential or pointless.
> 
> Inspired by Andrew Cottar and his wonderful dogs, Olive and Mabel, who have kept so many of us sane during these apocalyptic times.  
> https://youtu.be/l942GNHc7rw
> 
> This fluffy story is set in a mythical place where despite the ongoing pandemic and quarantine, the main problems faced by the protagonists are not to do with their physical health and livelihood nor that of their loved ones, but instead their overwhelming desire to snog one another, which is forbidden because of the quarantine. TW for loneliness, pining, and cute dog overload. 
> 
> Fills my 2020 Round 11 h/c bingo square "cuddling" 
> 
> With huge thanks to Tari_Sue and Clea2011 for reading an early draft and giving me the confidence to continue

Arthur Pendragon would be the first to admit that he was not designed for solitude. No, he came into his element at grand sporting occasions, surrounded by cheering fans, as he delivered insightful commentary in measured tones into the microphone. Or else, in the studio, where he and his BBC colleagues Elena, Elyan and Leon would debate masterful footballing tactics. 

“Stop brooding, Arthur,” advised Morgana, tossing a perfectly groomed lock of hair over one shoulder. “And take that dumb, mangy old hound of yours out for a walk.” 

“Cavall is a golden labrador, not a hound. He’s only eight months old. And he is far from mangy.” Scratching Cavall behind his ears, Arthur scowled at Morgana’s disembodied head, which was frowning back at him from the screen of his tablet. 

“I see you don’t deny that he’s dumb,” smirked Morgana. “Honestly, it’s like looking at twins, the two of you together. All that fluffy golden hair and male ego. You’re like a pair of egotistical cheesy Wotsits.” 

Cheesy Wotsits were Arthur’s favourite childhood snack, and Morgana’s favourite name for him when she wanted to be annoying. Which was all the time. 

“God, change the record.” With an exaggerated eyeroll, he patted the soft, downy hairs on his pup’s tummy, prompting Cavall to coat his hand with adoring licks. “Don’t listen to her, Cavall. She’s just jealous because she looks like a bossy liquorice allsort.”

“I do not.” Morgana’s mouth compressed to a rosebud.

“Plus, I’m not brooding.” 

“Of course you’re not,” said Gwen in a sympathetic voice, coming forward so that her face filled the screen. “You just need some fresh air, that’s all. Awww, look at your cute widdle puppy. He’s so adorable, Arthur. I wish I could come and take him for a walk.” 

“He’s not  _ widdle! _ ” Arthur protested. “He’s nearly fully grown.” 

“Stop prevaricating, Arthur!” snapped Morgana. “You need a walk.”

“What really I  _ need  _ is pizza, beer, a mate to share my sofa with, and a good football match on TV,” Arthur admitted, and then immediately regretted it because, Lord! He must be feeling lonely to reveal so much vulnerability to Morgana in one sentence. “Or some horse racing. A spot of snooker. Or a golf tournament. Anything, really,” he added in a hasty bid to save his own masculinity. 

It was all Gwen’s fault. No-one could resist one of her sympathetic looks, even at a distance and filtered through the lens of a video call. They should be banned, those sympathetic looks. 

Cavall let out a huge yawn and then lay with his head on Arthur’s lap, gazing adoringly up at him. 

“Oh, Arthur.” Gwen’s mouth pressed into a considering line and the field of view of the picture moved, so that Morgana was no longer visible, although Arthur knew she would still be listening. 

He knew what was going on here. He wasn’t stupid. In a classic Morgana move, she had deployed Gwen to deal with him. Morgana was nothing if not talented in understanding which of her minions to deploy to do a difficult job at any one time. And when it came to wheedling out Arthur’s emotional secrets, Gwen was at the top of her game. Honestly, Gwen’s training regime had been phenomenal, if unorthodox. She had been shaped by the hand of an expert into a finely honed instrument of sympathy and… well, if he’d been commenting on a footballer, he’d say that you just couldn’t argue with results like that, and the other commentators and pundits would nod sagely. 

But thanks to this damned virus, he wasn’t commentating any more. Not now, and not for the foreseeable future. Maybe never. In his more morbid moments, Arthur wondered if he would ever see or talk about sport again. Was it ridiculous that it was that thought that made his eyes prickle? He wasn’t ill, damn it all. And as far as he knew, nor were any of the people that he loved, and he was financially secure. Plenty of families were experiencing far worse during this pandemic. He was safe, well fed, and comfortable. So why was he feeling so morbid? 

“…can’t fix that for you, love,” Gwen was saying, because she had carried on talking despite his obvious discomfort and distraction, in a sympathetic bid to help him to get over whatever mini crisis he was suffering that day, bless her. “But things will get better, I promise. Just take one day at a time, okay? I know it’s hard, staying away from other people during this lock down. But look outside! It’s a gorgeous day. Go out and enjoy the weather with your gorgeous puppy, all right? Maybe you could take a film of him, and create a video blog or something?” 

She paused to sweep a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Like Morgana’s, Gwen’s hair was becoming very long during lock-down, and she had let it run to its natural shape so that it cascaded over her shoulders in thick, glossy corkscrews. The natural look suited both women, although he would never say so out loud. He didn’t have a death wish, and he had no doubt that his ever resourceful sister could easily find some way of murdering him, despite all the current restrictions on travel. 

“And get a haircut!” came Morgana’s disembodied voice, as if she could read his mind. 

“ _ You  _ get a haircut,” he rejoindered. 

She had a point, though. Over the last few weeks, Arthur’s hair had become long and unkempt. He had to keep flicking it out of his eyes, like some sort of refugee from the nineteen eighties. But he refused to do what some of his friends had done, like Percy and Elyan, and get some electric hair clippers delivered so he could cut it himself. So, it just kept getting longer and longer. At this rate, he would need to start wearing Alice bands like Neymar.

It could be worse, he supposed; his next-door neighbour’s hair, when he’d caught glimpses of it, had come to resemble that of a woolly black sheep. Goodness only knew how the man managed to stop it from driving him bananas. But secretly, Arthur quite liked glimpsing the man’s unkempt hair and the sharp cheekbones that those curly locks dangled on, and those long, coltish limbs that flailed about the place when he took his equally shaggy dog out for walks. 

“But we do worry about you, Arthur,” said Gwen.

“I’m all right,” he said, frowning. “It’s not so bad, living in the country, I suppose.” 

Moving to the country had seemed like a great idea at the time, of course. He was not to know that only a few short days after he moved in, the government would ban people from leaving their homes because of the pandemic. But in fairness, despite the circumstances, his love affair with his little cottage showed no sign of diminishing. It wasn’t a bad place for him and Cavall to end up while he recovered from being turfed out of his Mayfair flat by the scheming Sophia after their horrendous break-up. Deep down, he knew that he needed this change, and that being stuck in Central London, pining for his ex during a pandemic, would have been far worse. 

“It’s probably worse for Sophia!” said Gwen, who had an uncanny habit of reading his mind. “All on her own in Berkeley Square.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Arthur snorted. “She’s all right as long as Fortnums still do deliveries. And at least Cavall can’t chew her ridiculously expensive shoes any more.” 

“You’re not missing her?” 

“Maybe a bit,” he admitted. “But I’m not missing all the stress of dealing with her.” 

“And the flat?”

“Funnily enough, I’m fine. It was more her flat than mine, in the end.” In their messy divorce settlement, Sophia had got the flat, while he had got the dog. “This cottage may be poky, but it has character.” It also had dodgy plumbing, a strange smell in the downstairs bathroom, and a quirky hot water system that he still had not managed to fathom, but for some reason he felt the need to defend it. “Plus, Cavall loves it here.” 

“Isn’t Cavall Sophia’s dog?” 

“Huh. Sort of. It was her idea to get him. And she did insist on a pedigree Labrador puppy. She cooed at him at first, but went off him the first time he did a piss on her designer furniture.”

Gwen let out an unladylike snort 

“She didn’t admit it at first, of course,” Arthur carried on. “But I twigged by the way that she got me to do everything for him and in the end, when he chewed up her Louboutins, it was the final straw.” 

He grimaced. 

“God, imagine if that happened to Morgana.” Gwen grimaced back in sympathy, igniting a warm sort of fellow-feeling in his chest. 

“I’d rather not.” He smiled at her, grateful for her sympathy for once, but unable to kick his melancholy. 

He normally managed to put a brave face on all the video calls to his sister and her girlfriend like this one, and the voice calls to his father and online meetings with his colleagues – all of them, like him, furloughed and stuck at home waiting for sports activities to resume so that they could go back to their jobs. Of course he did. And Cavall kept him company. But something deep inside him craved company, the simple touch of another human, and he grieved it. The mention of Sophia, toxic though their relationship had become, merely rekindled his grief. Even though she had taken his home, his furniture and even his car. He still missed her, with a hollow ache that he could not fill. 

He rubbed his chest. 

“Arthur?” Gwen said kindly. 

“Hmm?”

“We lost you for a moment, darling.” 

“Sorry, I was miles away.” 

“You’re better off out of the relationship, you do know that.” 

“Stop daydreaming, Arthur,” came Morgana’s voice, and her face reappeared, eclipsing Gwen’s, pale and poised with a stubborn set to her chin. “We’re going to bake, now.”

“Oh, really?” Arthur teased. “ _ We _ are, are we? Quite the domestic goddess, now, are you, Morgana? And how has Gwen managed to execute this miraculous transformation? Because as I recall, from a quite terrifying incident in our childhood, you were once incapable of making toast without summoning several fire engines.” 

“Pfft.” Morgana made a dismissive gesture. “As it happens, Gwen is a superb baker. In my role as supportive, adoring fiancée, I am also superb. Now, call us when you’ve uploaded the video of your puppy.” 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Stop bossing me around, Morgana. I haven’t promised anything.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, dear brother. You know it’s a good idea.” 

“I thought maybe I would, when Gwen suggested it, but the more you press me the less inclined I am to do anything about it.” 

“Oh, you pig-headed, obstinate idiot. Honestly, do what you like. I don’t care.” 

“Good. I will.” 

“Good.” 

They bickered amicably for a moment or two longer before ending the call. Casting his phone onto the kitchen table, Arthur looked down at Cavall who still lay there blinking up at him in adoration. 

“Come on, pup. Time for your  _ doubleyew ay ell kay _ .” 

“Woof!” Instantly, Cavall bowled away from his lap and skittered across the kitchen floor, all doggish enthusiasm, making a beeline for the hook where his lead hung. 

Chuckling, Arthur grabbed a packet of dog treats and placed them in his pocket. On a whim, he picked up his phone, placing it in the other one. Maybe there would be something worth filming after all. It wasn’t a terrible idea, although he could never tell Morgana that directly.

Cavall paused by the back door, blinking towards his box of toys, his eyebrows doing that wise-old-man thing that dogs do, the one that makes them look almost intelligent. 

“So what’s it to be today. The ball?”

“Woof.” Cavall nudged at Arthur’s hand with the cold tip of his nose. 

“It’s like you can talk, sometimes.” Arthur fished out a couple of Cavall’s favourite toys and bent to clip the lead onto his collar. “Come on. Let’s go out hunting!”

Sophia could keep the Mayfair flat. Arthur had an adoring companion, and he counted that as the better end of the deal. 


	2. Introducing the Shaggy Dog

The nineteenth-century house where Arthur had lived for the last six weeks was one of a pair of former farm workers’ cottages, joined at a common wall, that lay at the end of a dirt track. Although extended and modernized, it had been sensitively restored, and remained a fine example of local architecture, with its brick-and-flint stonework and climbing roses and clematis-festooned trellises. The previous owner, an elderly man whose nephew still lived next door with a pet that looked more bear than dog, had clearly put a lot of time and thought into the garden. It was one of the main attractions for Arthur – with the added bonus of being a thumb to the nose at Sophia, who despised country living in general and gardens in particular, mainly because of a propensity for gardens to host bugs and creepy-crawlies and flying insects. 

The nephew next door was busy watering the plants in his front garden this morning, his woolly hair drifting out around his long face like a great shaggy mane that made Arthur’s fingers twitch with the need to impose order on it. They exchanged a wave while Cavall, eager to get on with the walk, strained against the lead. 

“Looks like your dog is keen to get somewhere!” called the neighbour, over the fence, voice pleasantly mellifluous, with a hint of an accent that Arthur couldn’t place. 

“Unlike yours, I see!” Arthur nodded towards the indistinct ball of dark, curly hair curled up in the middle of the lawn, like a rug with fangs. 

“Yeah, well, it’s not easy dealing with this kind of heat when you’re a mixadoodle.” 

“A what?” 

“A mixadoodle.” 

Arthur scoffed. “That’s not a breed. You just made that up.”

“Why not?” The neighbour shrugged. “There’s some poodle in there somewhere, and it’s mixed with a whole load of other breeds, so it’s the best word I can think of. She’s a one-off, aren’t you, Freya? Who’s a good dog? You’re a good dog! Yes you are!” He bent to pet the rug, which obligingly licked his arm. “Cross-breeds are the best. Yes they are. And you’re the best of the best! Not like those dumb pedigree tripe-hounds!”

“Hey. I’ll have you know that Cavall’s grand-sire was named Best in Breed at Crufts!” said Arthur, bristling at the implied criticism. 

“Of course he was!” The neighbour burst out laughing, and pointed at Cavall, who was somewhat ruining the impact of Arthur’s defence by chewing his shoelaces. “I’m only kidding, mate. He’s a gorgeous puppy. I’m Merlin by the way. And this is Freya.” 

Arthur smiled back, only slightly grudgingly, because the sun was beaming down, and this shaggy-haired stranger had a beguiling smile. Plus, his equally shaggy dog was cute, although obviously he would never admit that. 

“Arthur,” he replied. He held his hand out for a second before remembering about social distancing, converting it to an awkward sort of wave with a self-deprecating cough. “I would shake your hand, but we’re probably breaking all the rules just chatting over the fence.” 

“Yeah.” Merlin shrugged. “Weird isn’t it? Well, it’s nice to meet you, anyway. I would offer to lend you a cup of sugar in the time-honoured way, but that’s probably not allowed either.” 

“You, too. I look forward to hearing some more of your made-up words later.” 

“Cheeky.” Merlin nodded at Cavall, who having run out of shoelaces to chew had now run to the full extent of his lead, and was straining to get going. “Looks like you’re being chivvied.”

Sure enough, Cavall whined and pulled at the lead again. 

“Yeah, I’m trying to train him. He’s a bit of a handful. But great fun! Cavall, heel!” 

Arthur shortened the lead and made him sit and wait, reinforcing his obedience with a treat before letting him get up. The puppy trainer had drilled him into applying consistency in his approach, otherwise Cavall would carry on pulling at the lead and half strangling himself. Releasing the dog now, he set off down the track at a jog, waving good-bye to an amused-looking Merlin. 

The weather during the lockdown was perversely glorious, as if to mock those who were unable to leave their homes to enjoy it. So when Arthur reached the stile leading to the field where he had been training Cavall, he was warm and sweaty. He paused to put Cavall’s water bowl down and fill it, letting the dog take a drink. From experience, he didn’t want to end up at the field with a thirsty dog. Cavall had a tendency to lap up any half-dried up puddle they came across otherwise, and Arthur didn’t want him to pick up any unsavoury parasites. The vet bills were astronomical enough as it was. 

When they got to the large field, Cavall stood by Arthur’s feet, his tongue lolling out as he gazed up adoringly at his master, his big, clumsy body quivering in anticipation of the game they were about to play. 

“Sit!” said Arthur, lifting a finger as the puppy trainer had taught him. 

Cavall licked his chops noisily as if to say _yes, master. I will do everything you say, master_ , but he did not sit down. 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Sit, you dumb animal. Sit down!” He held up a finger. “Sit, Cavall!”

Cavall’s entire body went rigid, except his tail, which whipped back and forth at high speed, and he still did not sit down. 

“Oh, you silly dog.” As an afterthought, Arthur fished his phone out of his pocket and started filming. “Here,” he said in his commentator voice as he pointed the camera at Cavall, “you see an example of the rare species _Canis Stupidus Labradorensis_. Preparing for the _Who Can Be the Daftest Dog?_ competition. Surely he has to be the favourite? He ate the hard copy I printed of yesterday’s training exercise, a fitting preparation for the grand final.” 

“Woof!” said Cavall, turning around twice, chasing his tail. 

Arthur let out a fond chuckle and shook his head. What was it the dog trainer had said? Tone of voice is just as important as the word. He tried again, this time imbuing his voice with all the sternness he could dredge up. “Sit!” 

Miracle of miracles, Cavall obeyed him this time, although his tongue still lolled out as if he were laughing at Arthur. 

“That’s it! Good dog!” said Arthur, warmth flooding through him as he switched hands for a moment, holding his phone and the ball launcher in one hand so he could fish around in his pocket for a treat. “Good dog!” He gave Cavall a congratulatory pat.

As usual, the treat disappeared as if it had never existed. 

“Now… fetch!” With a twist of his arm, Arthur hurled Cavall’s ball at the end of its launcher, filming its trajectory as it went sailing off into the long grass. 

Predictably, Cavall went bowling away at high speed, with little thought for watching to see where the ball landed. There was a flurry of activity, loud barking noises and high speed chases across the grass in completely the wrong direction. Eventually, the dumb animal ended up in the middle of the long grass, bounding over tussocks in a display of fruitless purposefulness that had Arthur dissolving into helpless laughter. He could see why dogs were prescribed for therapy, for people with mental health issues, because it was impossible to brood about Sophia too much when he had an energetic adolescent labrador to care for. 

Reflecting on this impossibility, he brought his phone around to film the pup, and spoke into the microphone. 

“As you can see, there is very little chance for the competition against such a masterful performance. Once again, the pup left his single brain cell at home again today. And as a result, we fully expect to see Cavall crowned world champion of daftness, thanks to the skilful display we have just witnessed. Such a privilege to see the young pup at the top of his game.” 

Arthur clicked off the phone. Then he walked into the knee-length grass, raising clouds of crane-flies and moths, and bent to retrieve the ball. 

Cavall bounded up to him, tongue lolling, breathing heavy doggy breaths all over him when Arthur bent to meet him. 

“You doggy dimwit,” Arthur said, fondly, petting Cavall’s soft ears. “Brainless boy. Watch where it goes, next time.” 

“Woof!” agreed Cavall, tongue lolling out. 

“You have no intention of doing that, do you?” 

“Woof.” Cavall planted enthusiastic licks all over Arthur’s nose, making his face smell of dog food. 

“Ugh. That’s disgusting. You’re lucky that I love you, Cavall.” 

“Woof.” Excited by all this praise, Cavall bounded away a couple of metres before returning to cover Arthur’s face with more doggy kisses that reminded him of the way that Merlin’s dog had slobbered over his arm back at the cottage. Which got him wondering if Merlin and his dog might want to come out for a walk with him and Cavall some time soon. As long as they kept two metres apart to be socially distant, he could not see why that would be a problem. It would be nice to be sociable and get to know his neighbour. Resolving to propose this idea next time he saw it, Arthur set off back towards the houses with a whistle on his lips and a spring in his step. 

But by the time they returned to the cottage, Merlin was no longer out in the garden of the next door property. Arthur was surprised at the strength of his own disappointment at not being able to exchange pleasantries with him. Why should he care? Arguably, with no end to the lockdown in sight, Merlin was probably the only human that he would be making contact with in person for the foreseeable future. That was probably it. 

Shrugging off his uncharacteristic pensiveness, Arthur depressed the latch to let himself and Cavall through the gate that led round the side of the house. There was no way he was going to let the dog enter via the front door, covered as he was in burrs, with his paws stinking and muddy from the footpath. Instead, he took the hose pipe and he carefully washed down said paws, ignoring the way that Cavall whined in protest, until they were acceptably mud free, before letting Cavall in through the back door.

“In you go,” he said.

Cavall whined and his mournful eyebrows arched, as if to say, “how could you?”

“It’s only water! There’s no need to look at me as if I had just thrown away your favourite toy.” 

Chuckling, Arthur inwardly thanked Morgana and Gwen for talking out of his blues and encouraging him to go out for a walk with his gorgeous dog. He felt a billion times chirpier. So, in a glow of magnanimity, and once he’d towelled down his now filthy pet, he spent a moment or two uploading the video he’d taken to a file-sharing platform and sending the link to his half-sister and Gwen by email. After all, it had been their idea. 

He was still chuckling as he imagined their reactions as they watched the videos, and it was only then that he realised that between the filming, his unexpected encounter with his neighbour, and dealing with Cavall, he had not thought about Sophia once all day. Maybe they were right, and the puppy was the best medicine for the fog of depression that had been hanging over him for weeks. 

At which point, he noticed a half-chewed trainer poking out from under the sofa. 

“Damned canine vandal,” he muttered under his breath, tossing the phone onto the coffee table. “What’s wrong with your chew, hmm? Why do you have to keep munching my footwear?” 

Cavall ignored him, turning round and round on his bed and slobbering noisily over a squeaky toy. So taken up with cleaning away the ruined running shoe was he, that Arthur forgot all about Morgana and the video he had sent her. 

Big mistake.


	3. No-one Wants to be Accused of Being a Pervy Voyeur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [tw for homophobic language]

Opening the curtain of his bedroom at the back of the house, Merlin yawned and stretched, peering out at the garden. Another day in paradise. The sky arched an impossible blue across the pink tops of the blossom-clad trees at the bottom of the garden and the green of the distant fields. 

He was just about to turn away when he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. Pulling the curtain aside a little further, he blinked down at the lawn of the garden next door, where his new neighbour, Arthur, he of the sarcastic come-backs and the pink, kissable lips, was doing some stretches, no doubt having finished his daily weight-training workout, while that cute not-quite-grown labrador of his tried to catch butterflies. 

Although his tummy was grumbling with hunger, Merlin stilled his hand and paused for a moment at the window. This exercise regime of his neighbour’s really enhanced the already lovely view, especially when Arthur turned and bent over to stretch out his very fine glutes. 

Merlin poked his tongue out to moisten lips that had suddenly turned dry. God. What a glorious arse that man had. 

When Arthur looked up at the window, he drew quickly back, mortified at his own creepiness. He was acting like some sort of sex-deprived teenager with a crush! Although he had every right to be peering out of his own window. But, still. No-one wants to be accused of being a pervy voyeur. 

Vowing not to be that slimy peeping Tom next door any more, Merlin stomped down the stairs and rattled around the kitchen, pulling together a cup of black tea and a bowl of corn flakes with water, because he had run out of milk and his next grocery delivery would not be for over a week. 

In many ways it was nice at a time like this to have a neighbour his own age - even if said neighbour was a bit of a pompous prat. Visually at least, this new neighbour was a massive improvement on Merlin’s uncle, Gaius, who had moved out some weeks ago to live above his pharmacy in Ealdor, saving himself the bother of commuting. Not that Merlin didn’t love Gaius, of course, but he was sure that Gaius himself would have been the first to admit that the new guy was a lot easier on the eye. With those broad shoulders, the mane of slightly-too-long (because of lockdown) fluffy blond hair, and the thickly muscled thighs that made an occasional, much celebrated (by Merlin) appearance when he went out for a run, the new neighbour was very much a hit. Plus, the opportunity to ogle said thighs, together with the unusually fabulous weather that had characterised the whole quarantine experience…

No. Merlin shook himself. He must stop being creepy and obsessing about thighs. 

Still, at least all this meant that Merlin was more than happy to leave the house each morning and spend much of the day tending to the garden, based on Gaius’s admittedly scant directions, on the offchance that his neighbour might appear in his own garden, wearing sports shorts that did nothing to hide the contours of that lovely arse. 

Most of the plants hadn’t died yet, so he must be doing something right. 

He shovelled another mouthful of soggy cornflakes in, with a grimace. He would run out of even cornflakes soon. And he only had one toilet roll left. At this rate, he would have to call Gwaine and ask him to pull some strings to get him some groceries delivered before the next one he had managed to book. 

Maybe Arthur would have some spare toilet roll? Merlin thought about asking him for a moment, then remembered that he’d possibly just been caught staring at Arthur’s bum through the window, and decided against it. Gwaine would have to do. Besides which, it would do Gwaine good to have some useful purpose. Otherwise, there was a danger that being quarantined would end up destroying his poor liver. 

Into his gloomy reverie penetrated a plaintive whine from Freya. Having finished her breakfast, she lay in her basket blinking mournfully at him through her lashes. It was time to take her for her walk. That would take his mind off the emptiness of his store cupboard. At least he had plenty of dog food. Freya would not be going hungry.

“Come, on then, Freya.” Merlin whistled.

Instantly she perked up, bounding across the kitchen floor, claws skittering on the worn tiles, thick black curls flopping across her ears, which he stooped to pet, smiling as her tongue came out to bestow ecstatic licks on any part of his skin that she could find – face, hands, arms, ears, the lot. 

“Who’s a good girl, then?” he said, lifting his chin to avoid the worst of the slobbering. “Who’s my bestest, most gorgeousest girl? Is it you? Is it?” 

Freya licked his hand. 

That was one of the best things about dogs. They didn’t take the mickey out of him when he made up words like _gorgeousest_. Unlike the clotpole next door, who despite being pleasant to look at, tended to start sneering at Merlin’s use of language at the slightest provocation. 

“Time for a walk.”

Obviously, Freya agreed with him. After fetching her lead, she dropped it at his feet and sat, waiting expectantly for his order, her tail thumping the floor. 

As they trotted off down the lane, Freya pausing occasionally to sniff at something interesting that Merlin couldn’t see, they saw remarkably few other people. Just the occasional other dog walker, or jogger out for their mandated one hour a day of exercise, but keeping to a safe distance because you could not be too careful. Soon they had reached the style that marked the entrance to a big field where Merlin liked to let Freya off the lead, if it was not busy. 

Today, there was one other person there, also exercising a dog. Merlin squinted, wondering if he knew them. Sure enough, he could just about make out their features. 

“Arthur!” he waved. 

As he watched Arthur hurled a ball impressively high into the sky where it described a perfect arc before descending into the grass. Cavall, his dog, bounded away at high speed in completely the wrong direction. 

“Oh, dear, Freya!” said Merlin with a chuckle. “Puppies, eh?” 

Freya wagged her tail. 

“Are you two going to be friends?” 

A moment later, Cavall obviously spied them. Giving up on his quest for the missing ball, he hurtled across the field to them, with Arthur jogging along in his wake, yelling at him to come back, with limited impact on the headstrong puppy. 

Upon arrival, Cavall launched himself at Freya, while she just rolled over, panting, letting him scamper over her before he ran off again equally abruptly, barking and looking over his shoulder expectantly as if to say _Come with me! There are rabbits!_

“I do apologise,” said Arthur, as he reached them, standing a safe distance away. “He’s just a doggy teenager and sometimes struggles with his impulse control. Cavall, heel!” 

“Freya doesn’t seem to mind. I think she quite likes him, to be honest.” 

When Cavall finally did come to his master, Arthur rewarded him with a treat. “That’s better. Good dog.” 

The two dogs were sniffing noses, tails aloft and swaying in what seemed to be a friendly way. It was a bit unfair, really, that dogs were allowed to get up close and personal like that, whereas thanks to this horrible virus, humans still had to stay an awkward distance apart, raising their voices across the void that separated them. 

“They look really cute, don’t they? Lucky things, being allowed to socialise,” Arthur said, echoing his thoughts. 

“Yeah, lucky indeed.” 

“Plus they can run around and chase balls together and stuff.” 

“Chase balls?” Remembering his lack of skill with anything remotely ball-shaped, Merlin laughed. “I’m not sure I agree with that bit. I was always a bit of a klutz at sport. I prefer dancing. Not that I’m not a klutz at that, too! But when you’re in a zumba class or whatnot, people don’t seem to care about that too much, whereas on the sports field I was always getting shunned and shunted around, haha, so…um...” he tailed off, realising that he was gabbling and Arthur’s eyes were beginning to glaze over a little. “So. Um. Sport? No. I don’t miss that bit.” he finished, a little lamely. 

“Well I do.” Arthur sighed heavily, shaking his head. “The lack of football has really got me down, to be honest. And it doesn’t look like the Premier League will even finish, this season. Liverpool have been robbed, right…?” 

He ended this statement with a helpless gesture and a sorrowful tilt to his eyebrows that seemed designed to elicit man-to-man sympathy over the demise of football, as if all blokes should care. 

Merlin really didn’t. 

He shrugged and cast about for something positive to say. “Well, you can still go for runs.” 

“Runs?” Arthur let out a hollow laugh. “Hardly a substitute for a decent football match, my friend. The roar of the crowd. The surge of attack and counter-attack.” His eyes took on a wistful, faraway look. “The guts, the drama, the skill…” 

“Wow!” Merlin laughed. “You really do care about this sports shit, don’t you!”

“Well, of course I do, idiot,” said Arthur, shoulders stiffening. He rolled his eyes. “I’m _me!_ Don’t you know who I am?” 

It was all Merlin could do to bite back a guffaw, because Arthur sounded comically like one of those washed up politicians who tried to blag their way into night-clubs on telly. Was he meant to recognise Arthur from somewhere? 

“Do real people actually say that?” he said. “You sound like you’re in a sit-com!”

“I’m not sure I am going to dignify that inane statement with a reply” spat Arthur, his expression darkening into a furious scowl that Merlin couldn’t help finding sexy. 

“I’m sorry. Am I supposed to know something about you beyond the fact that you are my neighbour with the cute dog?” 

“Oh, I get it now.” As Arthur nodded, his mouth narrowed to a thin line. “I understand. You’re mocking me.” 

“Really?” Merlin furrowed his brow in genuine bemusement. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow celebrity culture much. Are you famous?” 

“Famous?” Arthur spluttered. “Sport is not celebrity culture, Merlin. It’s far more important than that.” 

“Huh. So are you an actual footballer or something?” Merlin eyed Arthur’s athletic frame appreciatively. “You look pretty fit, I suppose.” 

“Well, thank you for the favourable critique. At least I’m not a twig who would snap in two in a high wind!” Pouting, Arthur clipped Cavall’s lead to his collar with an offended snap.

Merlin’s jaw dropped open. “There’s no need to be rude!”

“Rude? _Me?_ ” Arthur poked himself repeatedly on the chest. “In what way was _I_ the rude one?” 

“You called me a twig!” replied Merlin, stung. “Just because I’m not some sort of meat-headed gym bunny doesn’t mean that I’m unfit! Quite the opposite, in fact...” 

“So I’m a meat-headed gym bunny, now?” said Arthur, voice rising to an incredulous crescendo.

“I didn’t say that!”

“You implied it! Well, you’re welcome to your opinion, but I’ve had enough of having my livelihood insulted. Cavall, come.” He tugged at Cavall’s lead and stalked off, chin in the air.

“Huh. Of all the arrogant, hypersensitive…” Merlin muttered under his breath, tailing off when he realised that no-one was listening to him any more. Not even Freya. She had flopped onto the grass, exhausted by the excitement, and was busy trying to catch grasshoppers with her tongue. “Fat lot of help you are.” 

He let out a deflated groan, wondering what it was about Arthur that had made him react so badly. He hadn’t had a petty argument like that since Adrian Myror in secondary school had called him a skinny pooftah. Unfortunately Mr Simmons had overheard Merlin calling Myror a fucking hypercompetitive bollocksing homo windbag who was so far in the closet that he might as well be in Narnia, and so he had been the one who ended up being put in detention. 

Still, at least he had ended up giving Myror an angry blow job in the science cupboard after detention, which had escalated into a lot more blow-jobs being reciprocated all round the school for several weeks afterwards. So there was that. 

Anyway, just what was it about Arthur that had got him all riled up? 

Briefly, a shadow passed across the sun. 


	4. Focaccia Distracture

Sisters in general, Arthur decided, and half-sisters in particular, were sent from heaven, or possibly hell, to complicate things, goad people, and generally make it impossible for a person to avoid thinking about the things they really wanted to avoid thinking about. Even during a pandemic-induced lockdown, when a person might think that the one silver lining to all the black clouds that were marching across the horizon was that sisters no longer had the ability to stick their noses in where they were not wanted, somehow this one had managed to wheedle out all Arthur’s secrets before he’d even had a chance to acknowledge them to himself. Which was just rude.

He blamed the tablet. Without it, if they were forced to converse on an old fashioned phone, or better, by letter, she would not be able to see his facial expressions and deduce the nature of his feelings. Technology had a lot to answer for. 

“It’s not difficult for me to see how you could piss off your neighbour, Arthur,” Morgana was saying now, in an annoyingly breezy tone of voice. “But what I fail to understand is why?” 

“I didn’t piss him off!” protested Arthur weakly. “Were you listening to me at all? _He_ was the one who pissed _me_ off!” 

“You were being a prat, Arthur. Stop trying to deny it.” 

While Arthur couldn’t put his finger on why he’d reacted so badly to not being recognised, he did at least acknowledge – in private, at least – that he had behaved like an arse. Which had to be progress, of a sort, surely? So why was Morgana being such a pest about it? He wished he had never confided in her. But what else was he to do? It wasn’t as if he spoke to anyone else on the regular. 

“He called me a meat-headed gym bunny!” he pouted eventually, realising that he sounded like a petulant child, but unable to summon the energy to stop himself. 

“Oh, Arthur,” she said in a false sympathetic tone that made him want to hurl his tablet out of the window. He managed to restrain himself, but it was a close run thing. “Your poor, bruised ego. I’m not sure how it will ever survive the experience. Do tell me more about this insightful-sounding gentleman who has got you so flustered. I’m intrigued.” 

Uh-oh. Morgana’s problem was that not only was she nosy, but she was also horribly intuitive. Which meant that she had an uncanny knack for joining two pieces of unrelated and seemingly harmless information to draw inference about a third, more dangerous item such as Arthur’s as yet unarticulated attraction to his bushy-haired neighbour. 

By now, he was running out of ways to say “I don’t see that it’s any of your business”. For two pins he would end the call altogether, but he restrained himself, because that would only make Morgana more suspicious and she was like a terrier with a chew when she latched onto something. A very expensively coiffed, beautifully manicured terrier with deadly claws and a nose for trouble.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said instead. To deflect, he added, “did you see the video I sent you?”

“Oh, Arthur, it’s adorable!” squealed Gwen. “It’s had loads of—” 

“Arthur, stop trying to change the subject,” interrupted Morgana. “What has your poor unsuspecting neighbour done to deserve you being a prat?” 

“Now hang on. He was the one who— Wait a minute. What’s had loads of what?” 

“Hmm? Oh… quick! What’s that noise? Was that the timer, Gwen? I think the focaccia is ready?” 

“Oh no!” Gwen’s hand flew up to her mouth and she disappeared abruptly off the screen. 

“Focaccia? Where on earth did you manage to find focaccia?” said Arthur, envious. Morgana and Gwen’s cottage in Avalon was miles from the nearest bakery. 

“Gwen is baking it,” said Morgana smugly. “From scratch. We got a strong white flour delivery before lockdown. You can’t get it for love nor money now, of course, but we were prepared.” 

Arthur rolled his eyes. Of course they were baking focaccia. Of _course_ they were!

“We’re running a cookery video channel,” Morgana added.

“Oh? Pray tell me more!” growled Arthur, who really did not want to know. 

“You wouldn’t like it, dear brother,” she said in her most irritating, lofty, patronising voice, the one that she reserved for him and him alone. “It’s aimed at intelligent, cottage-core, witch-core lesbians like us. Not thuggish sporting neanderthals like you…”

“Hey! Not you as well!” said Arthur. “I get enough of that from my neighbour.”

“He’s got a point, you’ve got to admit. Anyway, our blog’s audience is a vastly different demographic to yours. It’s about love, mutual respect and harmony with the natural world...” 

“Oh, God.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “I’ll bet you coo at Gwen and make kissy faces, don’t you?” 

“I do not coo at Gwen!” protested Morgana, her voice going all shrill.

“Oh, you do. You coo all the time,” said Arthur, warming to his topic. “You’re a serial coo-er. You sound like a flock of wood pigeons, such is the level of coo-age. I do hope you have warned your viewers to have a bucket on hand. It’s enough to make anyone feel ill… in fact, wait a minute, I’m inclined to update my virus symptom tracker app.” He checked his phone with an ostentatious flourish, sucking air in through his teeth. “I’m becoming suddenly nauseated.” 

“Don’t be such a grouch, Arthur,” hissed Morgana. “And you’ve changed the subject again. Why have you pissed off your neighbour?” 

Tenacious as a bloody ferret, and twice as irritating. 

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. What is this, some kind of Spanish inquisition?” 

“Our chief weapon is surprise,” she murmured. 

“For the last time, it’s none of your bloody business! I wish I’d never told you about him.” 

She smirked. “Hmm. I get it. You fancy him don’t you.”

“What the—” Arthur spluttered. “How did on earth did you get from him insulting me to me _fancying_ him? That’s a conceptual leap even for you, Morgana.”

“I can read you like a book, little brother. Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. For now.” 

“For— Wait! I don’t have a bloody secret!” 

“Secret? Ooh! Do tell!” said Gwen, reappearing at Morgana’s shoulder. “What’s your secret, Arthur? Spill the beans!” 

“Oh, great.” Arthur looked to the heavens, blowing out his cheeks. Now Morgana and Gwen were going to go round video-conferencing all their mutual acquaintances telling them that he had a secret. “Don’t you have to go and eat focaccia for your apple core supporters?”

“It’s cottage-core, Arthur dear, not apple core,” said Morgana in her most condescending voice. “Do keep up.”

“It’s not quite ready yet,” said Gwen at the same time with a shrug. “It’ll be another ten minutes. Morgana must have been hearing things.” 

“Oh really? So sorry, poor dear Gwen,” said Morgana looking smugly down at her nails. “Silly me.” 

Arthur narrowed his eyes into a suspicious glare. Now, what was she up to? What was it that Gwen had said earlier, before the interruption? He was sure there was something, but he couldn’t for the life of him remember what it was. 

Damn his bloody devious half sister and her annoying ability to distract him with focaccia. Sighing, he ended the call with the usual pleasantries and sat on the sofa, firing up the DVD player to wallow in Arsenal’s past glories. He missed football. He missed his dad. He missed bloody devious sister. He even missed Sophia, simply for the warmth of another human by his side, albeit one prone to carping and sniping. When they were first courting, if Arthur wasn’t working or if Arsenal were playing away so he could not attend the match in person, he and Soph used to sit cuddling on the couch together and commentate - Soph critiquing on the footballer hairstyles and their latest clothing deals, while Arthur would comment on the match. They made a good team. 

As if he had noticed Arthur’s morose mood, Cavall jumped up onto the settee in direct contravention of Arthur’s unwritten rule and laid his head on Arthur’s knee, blinking at him mournfully. Arthur blinked back, eyes prickling. 

“At least I’ve got you to cuddle, old boy,” he said laying his hand on Cavall’s bony head and scritching behind the soft hairs on his ears. “At least I’ve got you.”

And if Arthur’s eyes were misty and his voice a little gruff, no-one noticed or cared, least of all Cavall.


	5. Gwaindr

A few days later, after uploading his latest pictures of Freya to his social media, Merlin took a moment to check in on Gwaine. Whereupon his many worries about how his friend would be coping with lockdown were swiftly corroborated.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking so much,” Merlin said, holding his tablet up to avoid getting a double chin.

“Not you as well.” Gwaine pulled a face. “Percy’s been on at me all weekend.”

“Percy?”

“Climber. Grindr. Muscles like whoa. Monster cock.”

“Grindr?” The worry that had been gnawing at Merlin’s gut intensified. “You’re not meeting up with men on—?”

“Jesus, Merlin, I’m not stupid. We’ve wanked off over the phone a few times that’s all!”

“And the drinking?”

“I love that you care, mate, but honestly, it’s just a little tipple before bed. And let’s face it, there’s fuck all else to do, except find out which pubs are getting rid of stock cheap, like.”

Gwaine had always had a hedonistic streak. In normal times, though, he would be off dancing and rock climbing and travelling the world. Merlin would be the first to admit that times right now were far from normal, but even so, it hurt his heart to see large-as-life Gwaine all alone and wallowing in maudlin like this.

“Which reminds me. Need any toilet roll?” Gwaine took another swig from his bottle, which looked alarmingly empty. “I can get you some. Bloke down the pub is selling them off cheap…”

“But the pubs are—

“Doing take-away. Trust me, I can get the real stuff. Two hundred rolls for thirty quid.”

“What could I possibly need two hundred bog rolls for?”

“Sure I could think of something.” Gwaine winked lasciviously, making Merlin laugh despite himself.

He understood Gwaine better than he wanted to. He would be lying if he said that lockdown had been easy on him. He was more accustomed to the hustle and bustle of Ealdor, the busy market town where he lived until recently. He would love to help his mother and Gaius in the town, but he suffered from chronic asthma and after being hospitalised last year with pneumonia, he was cautious about going out. 

Next, he had a video conference with his mother, who had become the linchpin of Ealdor’s community, and spent most of her days ferrying prescriptions and grocery deliveries to all its self-isolating elderly inhabitants.

“You are getting enough exercise, aren’t you, Merlin?” said Hunith’s forehead. 

“Yeah, of course I am.”

“Every day?” Huniths hairline asked.

“Mum, you need to move your tablet. All I can see is the top of your head, again.”

“Stop changing the subject.” The screen’s angle changed, this time zooming in on her chin. “Don’t lie to me,” said an enormous pair of zoomed-in lips, partly obscured by what Merlin assumed was Hunith’s thumb over the lens of the camera.

“What gave me away?” 

“You forget that I lived with you for eighteen years.” For a brief moment, her whole face came into focus so that he could see the worry in her eyes. “Remember what Gaius said. You need…

“...to take at least one twenty minute brisk walk every day to get my heart rate up and improve my lung function.” Merlin added this much-repeated phrase in unison with her, inwardly cursing Gaius for ratting him out to his mother like that. Whatever happened to patient confidentiality? 

“Stop rolling your eyes. Plus,” she added. “Freya needs it too. You spoil her. She’ll get fat if you don’t walk her often enough.” 

“Mum!” Merlin whined. “That’s a low blow, bringing Freya into it.”

“Tell me you will do it.” 

“You know all my weak spots.” He pouted.

“Well, I worry, Merlin. So please do it. For me, of nothing else.” 

“All right, I will.” 

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Duties done, he then cracked open his last can of local cider. He knew his mum and uncle were right. He should get out to walk every day, if only to keep Freya healthy and to shut his mother and Gaius up.

He was sipping from the cider can while scanning his emails in front of an old episode of Miranda when his eye was caught by a message from his mate Will. 

_Hey Merls, how’s your hair hanging you woolly-headed bastard? Watch this, it’ll cheer you up. Put the sound on._

There was a link to a video entitled “BBC sports commentator finally loses it”. Mystified, Merlin clicked it and blinked when he watched the video clip unfurl. The clip showed a very cute and quite young labrador, blinking up at the unknown person filming. Judging by the huge number of hits and comments on the snip, this doggie was the latest social media sensation. 

As Merlin watched the domestic drama unfold on screen, it was overlain by a dry off-screen commentary that made him smile, just as Will had predicted. 

“Ah, well, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to what is shaping up to be a cracking contest. And here you see today’s contestant lining up for naughty puppy of the year award, and what a strong candidate he is for the position.” 

“Woof!” agreed the pup, turning away to pick something up in its jaws. 

“Despite lacking any brain cells, see the cunning way that he selects the ever-favourite trainer to chew, rather than the dog toy bought specifically for the purpose. A genius move that guarantees him the points and leaves him streets ahead of the opposition.” 

The commentator’s voice was familiar – he couldn’t work out where he’d heard it before, but probably if the guy was a BBC sports commentator Merlin must have heard him on the radio or telly. He wasn’t particularly into watching sports, but sometimes the BBC was just on while he was doing something else or when he was around at someone else’s house. It was a mellifluous voice – posh, slightly gravelly, and not without sex appeal. Charmed without knowing why, Merlin could understand why Will thought he might like it. For one insane moment it did cross his mind that the voice-over sounded a bit like his prat of a neighbour Arthur. Arthur was in sport, apparently, after all. But no, the resemblance of both dog and voice to his neighbour had to be a coincidence, surely? 

Freya chose that moment to trot up to him and put her head on his knee, blinking up at him through a thick mane of fur. 

“We must give you a trim,” he resolved, brushing the hair out of her eyes. 

She licked his hand and yawned before trotting over to her food bowl and lying down next to it. 

“All right, I get the hint.” Laughing, he chucked his tablet down onto the table and went to rummage in the kitchen for some food for her before settling down to watch some more videos on his laptop. 

His curiosity still piqued, he went back to the dog video and checked out the other clips on the social media channel where it had been posted, which was run by someone with the username EvilGoddess. The dog clip had millions of hits, and the comments under the video were from all over the world. Other than that, most of the other videos on the channel were devoted to a kind-faced woman with a sweet voice, baking delicious-looking vegan recipes called things like Goddess Focaccia and Earth Mother Lemon Drizzle Cake. 

This confirmed that the dog video had to be unrelated to Arthur. Apart from anything else, he really couldn’t see Arthur calling himself EvilGoddess as an internet name, or communing with the soil before baking, besides which he knew that he didn’t share the house with anyone else, so that was a dead end. Not even sure why he found this slightly disappointing, Merlin closed the lid of his laptop and stretched out with a sigh, letting his eyelids droop. 

God. Was this what his life was going to be, from now on? Falling asleep on the sofa with a cider in his hand, and no social life ever again? He wished he could just touch someone. Hold another warm body in his. Just to remind him that he was alive, and human, and had a future that would not be spent alone. 

A few minutes later, a heavy, hairy object draped itself across his lap. Recognising Freya’s shaggy head, Merlin petted said object, a wry smile tugging at his lips. 

“At least I’ve got you, Frey, right? And that’s the main thing.”


	6. Puppius Woebegoneii Labradorensis

It felt a little bit wrong, at first, filming Cavall having a bath – or rather, a shower. After all, Arthur would not have been impressed if someone had been filming him having a shower. He could imagine few grosser violations of privacy. But it only took him a few moments to get over his initial inhibitions, because Cavall’s reaction to bathing was at once so tragic and so comical that Morgana deserved to see it. He was only sharing it with his sister and her girlfriend, after all. 

“And here you see today’s candidate for the prestigious _2020 Puppius Woebegoneii Labradorensis Shield_ ,” he said into the phone as he moved around the dog, Cavall’s sorrowing eyes following him all the way. “Fiercely contested by daft mutts everywhere. Only the Kennel Club’s _Most Innocent-Looking Pooch Trophy_ holds more cachet.” 

They were out in the garden, Arthur having deemed that Cavall’s recent run-in with a decomposing squirrel corpse meant that rigorous application of puppy shampoo would be required before the stinky dog could enter the house. 

“Oh, yes, he is a contender,” Arthur said gaily as he pulled the lever that activated the shower nozzle on the garden hose and turned the jet towards Cavall’s disgruntled frame. “See how his fur clings to his skin like a sodden rain jacket? See how his tail attempts to disappear between his legs in a flagrant attempt to guilt-trip his owner into foregoing the dog shampoo?” Arthur panned across towards the dog shampoo before returning his camera to the subject. “Is there any sorrier sight? Ah, yes, the boy may be young, but his emotional manipulation tactics are impressive. Skilful, yet ultimately futile given the impressive and frankly vile stench that accompanied him home from his walk today. Hence his current predicament.” 

Cavall chose that moment to stage an escape attempt, whining and dislodging an impressive amount of now-mucky water. 

“Ah, no, you don’t.” Arthur balanced his phone on a nearby windowsill, to give himself two hands free to grab Cavall’s collar. Taking care to ensure that Cavall was still fully in the picture so that Morgana would experience the full effect of Cavall’s mock-sorrowful eyebrows. 

Cavall hung his head while Arthur applied the shampoo. “Puppies who have been frequenting rotting wildlife need shampoo.” 

Given the gorgeousness of the weather, the overarching blue dome of the sky, and the sheer fuss that Cavall was making, Arthur was enjoying himself immensely. He took pity on the pup and gave him a treat before towelling him down, being rewarded with a frenzy of sloppy doggy kisses as he told him what a good dog he was, yes he was, yes him, Cavall, yes he was, Arthur’s best boy, who was Arthur’s best boy? Cavall was Arthur’s best boy, yes he was. 

He would need a wash himself by the time Cavall had finished bestowing adoring licks all over his person, but it was worth it. Was any human ever more loved than a dog owner? 

Arthur sincerely thought not. 

Satisfied that he had done enough to reassure both Morgana and Gwen of his health and well-being, he stopped filming and threw himself into the wooden chair on his deck to enjoy the feeling of sun on his face. Above him, a group of birds darted and soared.

Into this peaceful idyll the doorbell blared, piercing and incongruous. Instantly alert, Cavall bounded around the corner of the house to bellow and hurl himself at the gate that separated the back garden from the front. 

“What the—?” Arthur followed more cautiously. 

Visitors were rare in this neck of the woods, even before the government mandated the stay at home advice. Could Sophia have tracked him down? 

“Hello?” he called, letting himself out through the gate and closing it against a protesting Cavall. “Hello?”

A courier stood there, next to a delivery van. 

A treacherous part of Arthur’s brain, one that he instantly squashed, suggested that maybe this was a peace offering from his ex. Or failing that, his missing toilet roll order?

“Package for number two.” The courier nodded at the neighbouring cottage. “He’s not answering his door.” 

“Oh.” Arthur sighed, slightly deflated, unable to completely quell the disappointment that the package was not from Soph. “I’m a bit muddy, I’m afraid.” 

“That’s okay. I’m not one to judge. What you do on your own property is your affair. I see all sorts...” 

“Look, I don’t know what you’re implying!” said Arthur, annoyed. “My dog has been having a bath! That’s all. You might as well leave it here. I’ll make sure he gets it.” 

“Need to take a photo of you with the package, instead of a signature. For social distancing,” said the courier, putting a large package on the floor and taking its photo with that of Arthur before stepping away. “Hey. Aren’t you that commentator geezer off the telly…?” 

“Yeah.” Arthur gave him a little wave. “That’s me. Sorry, I can’t hang about for autographs. My dog…” 

Bang on cue, Cavall let out another volley of deep barks and hurled himself at the gate so hard that it rattled, making something fall to the floor with an alarming tinkling noise. “Oh, no. I had better go and see what that was—?” Grabbing the parcel, Arthur backed away towards the gate as fast as he could. 

“That your puppy?” Oblivious to Arthur’s discomfort, the courier craned his neck to see around him to the gate. “The missus thinks he’s cute! Any chance I could take his picture too?”

“No,” said Arthur as he backed away. “I’m sorry, he’s only a puppy and it’s really not a good idea at the moment.” 

“Oh. Shame. I suppose not. Never mind, eh?” The courier gave a little wave before getting back into his van and gunning the engine. “Stay safe, mate.” 

“You too.” 

It was only later, after Arthur had finished grooming and feeding Cavall, that he wondered how the courier’s wife knew Cavall was cute. Dismissing it as an over-friendly fan stepping across boundaries, he resolved to avoid that courier company for future deliveries. Just in case. 

Although he as not excited at the prospect of talking to Merlin again. So far, he had avoided addressing the thorny problem of apologising to his attractive neighbour for his surliness on encountering each other in the field the other day. Arthur hated admitting to being in the wrong, but he could not look back on the incident without wincing at his own behaviour. 

He would contrive a way of leaving the package somewhere safe for Merlin to collect, so that they did not have to speak to each other. 

He let out a chuckle. The irony was not lost on him. Here he was, missing human contact so much that it made him want to scream sometimes, and yet he had somehow managed to alienate the one person he was most likely to see every day. 

_Great work, Arthur_ , he muttered to himself. _Excellent self sabotage. Your father would be proud._

Then he dropped a note through Merlin’s letterbox, saying that he would be leaving the parcel just inside his own porch ready for Merlin to collect. No need to knock.


	7. Love is... Toilet Roll in a Time of Lockdown

Cavall bounded to the door, his usual enthusiastic baying heralding the imminent sounding of the bell. Sometimes, Arthur wondered why people with labradors bothered having doorbells. A grumpy woofing sound was just as effective. 

Sure enough, a second later, the doorbell rang. Who could possibly be at his door now? For a brief moment, he entertained a fantasy that it might be Sophia, here to beg his forgiveness and ask for a reconciliation. Would he welcome it? He was not sure, not now, not after a few weeks of being independent and having his own space, free of drama, expectations, and expensive shoes. But he could not deny that a hug would be nice.

“Cavall, sit!” Bending to grab Cavall’s collar, Arthur made soothing noises and pulled him back with one hand while he reached up to open the door with the other, so that he was gaping up at the person outside. “ _Mer_ lin?” 

“Oh! Hi!” Merlin stood there, hands in pockets, blinking at him, mouth widening in a delighted smile that transformed him into a sparkling ray of sunshine, or something of that sort, if someone with a twinkling pair of ocean-blue eyes could be said to be a ray of sunshine. 

The potential for mixing metaphors when Arthur tried to describe such an astounding smile was quite large. Transfixed, Arthur gaped back for a moment or two before registering what the man was saying. 

“...clever dog, then!” Merlin finished. “Going to sit for your master? There’s a good boy.” 

“Cavall, you daft mutt!” croaked Arthur, returning back to reality with a bump. “Sit!” 

Finally, Cavall sat down on his haunches, panting up at Arthur as if to ask him what all the fuss was about. 

“Good boy.” Cautiously, Arthur released his hold on Cavall’s collar. He fished out a treat from his pocket and popped it on the floor, where Cavall mopped it up with one gulp. 

“Such a good dog.” Merlin maintained the required two metres distance, but crouched down, hands on his knees, to give Cavall a quick pat and let him sniff at his hand. “Super manners!” He looked up with a sly tilt to his eyebrow. “Unlike _some_ I could mention...” 

Clearly Merlin, having examined the stiff note that Arthur left, had decided that rather than avoid the problem, he would confront it head-on. Arthur did not know what he should be surprised by this. After all, Merlin had not shied away from telling Arthur what he thought of him at the time. In fact, he didn’t come across as someone who avoided talking about problems. Arthur found this rather refreshing, because it was pretty much the opposite of the Pendragon way of dealing with things, which was to ignore problems until they turned into a massive and deeply painful crisis, and then escalate them to an out-and-out battle, causing one another irrevocable harm in the process. Come to think of it, that had been Arthur’s main tactic for dealing with Sophia. And look how that had turned out. 

Talking about problems face to face? Maybe there was something in it after all. 

“Ah.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “About that.” He cleared his throat, and stared up at the sky for inspiration. The sky stared back. “I. I… erm…” Arthur harrumphed and cleared his throat. “I... erm... I... I wanted to apologise.” 

“You do?” Merlin blinked up at him before standing up again.

“Yeah. You know. The other day.” With a sigh, Arthur leaned against the door post. 

Merlin lifted an eyebrow. His eyes really were a gorgeous shade of blue. When the light hit them like that, they had a hint of gold in them that Arthur hadn’t encountered before. Unsettled, he stared at the sky again, instead. 

“Um…” Arthur said to the sky. “Yes. Well. I’ve… I’ve had a chance to think about it and… I was rude to you. Yes. I was.” Taking his chances with eye contact, he looked Merlin squarely in the eye. “What I said was uncalled for.” 

“It was.” Merlin nodded. “You called me a twig.”

Arthur winced. “In fairness, you did call me an over-developed gym bunny.” 

“Ah.” Merlin had the grace to look sheepish. “Well. I was provoked. I may have exaggerated.”

“I suppose you were.” It was an olive branch. As such, Arthur grasped it eagerly. “You know, I’m finding this whole pandemic thing hard, and I’m coming out of a messy divorce… so you hit a sensitive nerve and… well. Blah blah blah. You were not to know that. I should not have taken it out on you.” 

“Thanks.” Merlin half-smiled at him in a way that softened his eyes into sincere rounds, which Arthur found honestly even more captivating than the previous dancing-eyed grin. To be honest, Merlin was beginning to show signs of having a whole arsenal of devastating expressions, any one of which he could deploy at a second’s notice to charm Arthur further. “You know, you’re not so bad when you’re being humble.” 

“And you’re not so bad when you’re not being sarcastic. And I’m sorry I called you a twig. In fact, you’re not entirely unattractive. In a quirky sort of way.”

Merlin laughed. “Wow, thanks! You don’t half know how to flatter a guy!” 

“That’s not what I…” Face now flaming, Arthur swallowed a couple of times. He wasn’t like this! He wasn’t a stammering idiot, he had been married, for God’s sake! And yet, this scruffy-haired, stubbly-chinned bloke with his array of beguiling facial expressions and that devastating, devastating smile, had him stumbling over his words like a teenager. “I mean… God, I mean… I didn’t mean… anyway, you have no reason to…” 

“Apology accepted.”

Running out of words, Arthur let out a heavy sigh and ran the fingers of his hand through his hair, hoping that his wan half-smile would do the trick.

“Even though you were a bit of an entitled arse,” Merlin added. “I can tell from your apology that underneath you’re probably pretty sound. If a bit of a prat.” 

“Big of you.”

“I like to try to be the better man,” Merlin deadpanned.

“Touché!” Arthur laughed. “I would shake your hand but… social distancing and all that!” 

Merlin smiled back, holding his gaze for just a moment or two longer than necessary before blinking lazily, eyes flicking down towards Arthur’s body, licking his lips in a frank appraisal. 

“Like what you see?” said Arthur. 

“Not bad,” replied Merlin in a husky voice. 

“Well, this,” purred Arthur, gesturing with one hand towards his abs, which, although not ripped, were far from his worst feature, and anyway, as they were currently hidden beneath his favourite England football jersey, no-one could see whether they had a layer of subcutaneous softness obscuring his muscle definition. “Is what you get from being a gym bunny.” 

“Hmm.” Merlin licked his lips. “I see. Whatever I said before, I take it all back. Gyms are clearly marvellous places. Are you really an athlete?” 

“Not any more,” admitted Arthur. “Well, I was a decent footballer as a schoolboy, but had to retire... so, no, I’m a sports commentator.” 

“Commentator?” spluttered Merlin, mouth widening into an incredulous grin. His hand flew up to his mouth. “Oh, my God! You’re a commentator? Are you…? I mean, is this…? Wow!”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, curious to have evinced such a strong reaction. “Why? You weren’t that impressed before—” 

“Say something sports pundit-ish!” interrupted Merlin, his gaze flicking from him to his dog, and vice versa. 

“Why?”

“Just… sorry. You don’t have to. You must get this all the time. It’s just, I might be going mad, but you sound just like someone… someone with a dog like yours…” His eyes took on a puppyish, pleading aspect that so resembled that of a dog that Arthur found them difficult to resist. “Please?”

Despite his protestations, Arthur didn’t really mind the trappings of celebrity all that much, so he obliged. 

“And over there…” he drawled in the hushed voice that he reserved for commentating on snooker matches. “Over there you see a man who has snookered himself in a self-sabotaging move that he is beginning to regret.”

Merlin’s jaw dropped open and he lifted a quivering finger, pointing at Arthur. “It _is_ you! You’re the bloke who… wow! Haha! I’ve seen all your videos! I must admit, I didn’t realise it was you at first, but it is, isn’t it? But you must have had loads of people contact you about it. The one of you telling Cavall off about going in the stream has over twenty million hits! And the way you tell him that you love him despite him chewing your trainer is adorable.” 

“The… what… I…” spluttered Arthur. “What?” 

“Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you, no wonder you got a bit cross with me! I don’t watch much sport, you see. Anyway, the videos are lovely and your voice is super sexy. If your commentary on football is anywhere near as nice to listen to, I might have to start watching!” 

“The videos…?” said Arthur, although a suspicion was beginning to dawn on him. An ugly Morgana-shaped suspicion. After all, you didn’t have a half-sister like her without developing a highly tuned sense for when she had done something hideously inappropriate. 

“Er. Yeah. You know, on the internet… the ones of you and your dog? They’re all over social media channels. You’re quite the latest sensation!” 

“Oh, God!” Arthur moaned, face in his hands, casting his mind back to the clips he’d sent to Morgana. “Wait a minute. Those are private!” 

“I hate to break it to you, mate, but they’re not private any more.” Merlin flashed him a pitying smile. “Although it’s sweet to know how much you love your dog. You’ve got a global fanbase declaring their undying love of how adorable the two of you are, together.” 

Groaning, Arthur cast his mind back to the episode with the stream, humiliating flashes of it coming back to him every time he remembered what he’d said to Cavall. He ground his teeth together as a wave of mortification stabbed him in the chest. 

“The evil old hag! I’m going to kill her! I knew she was plotting something! I knew it! I should have known when…” he tailed off when a realisation hit him. “Wait a minute. That’s what Gwen meant! She was going to tell me!” 

“Gwen?”

“My sister’s fiancée. Shit. That evil harpy!” 

“Your sister?” A confused frown scrunched Merlin’s forehead. It had no business looking so cute, but Arthur was too incensed to focus on that right now. 

“What? Oh. My half-sister Morgana.” He let out a hollow laugh. “Well, let’s just say that if you were to take the Wicked Witch of the West, Macchiavelli and all three of the hags from Macbeth, and wrap them up into one demented, designer-clad person with immaculate lipstick, you still end up with a being who is an order of magnitude less devious and manipulative than her.” 

“I’m sensing you have a lot of hidden anger…” Merlin tilted his head on one side. His mouth tipped up at one corner. “Look, it’s not so bad. The videos are adorable. And I’m sure you can think of some way of avenging Cavall’s honour.” 

Taking a few breaths to tamp down his temper, Arthur looked down at Cavall, who had returned to a sanctioned occupation, savaging his favourite dog chew. At least he had moved on from massacring Arthur’s trainers, which was something to be thankful for. And the sun was shining. 

“Yeah,” he said, pulse calming as a germ of an idea entering his head. He grinned back at his neighbour. “Yeah, actually, come to think of it… I might be able to think of something.” 

“Well, before you do…” Merlin waggled an eyebrow. “Do you think I could possibly have my package please?” 

“Your package?” Confused, Arthur let his gaze drop down to Merlin’s crotch and back for a moment. “Oh! Sorry! I see what you mean!” 

Heat flooded his cheeks. He hoped Merlin wouldn’t notice the furiousness of his blush. 

“Perhaps you could drop it on my porch, under the awning, so I don’t have to touch it for a day or two? I’m still sorta shielding so…” 

“Yeah. That’s a great idea. Of course.”

Merlin backed away down the path away from Arthur’s front door, turning at the gate and sauntering back towards his own front door through a tunnel of blue wisteria. Arthur followed at a safe, government mandated distance, the scent of the wisteria making his nostrils flare. He plonked the package down inside Merlin’s porch without touching anything, and then stepped away. 

“Thanks,” said Merlin in a soft voice, his face morphing into an unexpected smile that made his eyes twinkle as his hand went up into a goodbye wave. 

“Any time,” said Arthur, charmed by this vision. “And thank you. You know. For being so understanding.” 

“It’s fine. You can inspect my package any time!” Merlin winked.

There was no way on earth that Arthur could help noticing the way that Merlin’s appreciative eyes followed him as he walked away from Merlin’s front door, down the wisteria-strewn path and back to his own home. 

“It’s toilet roll, you know,” Merlin called when he reached the gate. “Just take a packet or two if you need some!”

“Thanks!” All thoughts of Sophia forgotten, Arthur was still smiling when he closed the door behind him.


	8. How to Soothe a Baffled Broadcaster

It took a day or two for Arthur’s idea to take full form. 

During that time, he went over the original footage that Morgana must have uploaded to social media without asking him. The production quality was terrible, as you would expect from something created using his mobile phone, and the sound quality was worse. You could hear his voice, fine, but behind it all was a lot of background noise from the wind on the microphone of his phone. He could do a lot better with a decent mic and the editing software that he had on his laptop. He was a professional, after all. Damn Morgana for making him look bad! 

Some of the viewers’ comments underneath the clip gave him pause for thought. Many of them centered on how cute Cavall was. A few of them made borderline terrifying observations about the sexiness of Arthur’s voice, and the kinds of things they would like to hear him to say. He skipped past those with a grimace. He also skipped over the usual raft of conspiracy theorists, advertisements for dubious get-rich-quick companies and misanthropes had spewed poisonous thoughts into the comment section. So far, so normal. There was nothing there to keep Arthur interested. 

But then there were the others - comments about the fact that Cavall was keeping someone going through tough times, or that Cavall’s face was the only thing that made them feel that life was worthwhile during this awful pandemic, or that they watched these videos to cheer them up whenever they felt low. Some people described their own painful or horrendous situations and the fact that just the sound Cavall barking, or the sight of him chasing butterflies in his Black Lives Matter dog jacket could lift them out of the horribleness for just a moment. 

Those were the comments that made him think. Actually, although he was just describing his dog, and Cavall’s daily routine - nevertheless, Cavall was doing some good in the world by just existing and being, well, Cavall.

Not that this was news to Arthur, of course. No, the surprising thing about Cavall’s legion of appreciative followers was that they also seemed to like him, Arthur, too. And this revelation was both a warm and terrifying thing, because Arthur had been unguarded in these videos, unscripted, and just stating the things that occurred to him when he was looking after his dog. The idea that people might love the way that he thought and spoke outside the world of sport was a novelty to him, especially after all those months of Sophia telling him what a disappointment he was as a husband.

At first he had thought about insisting that Morgana took down the video clips. But he was glad that he hadn’t because it did seem that, for the first time in his life, Arthur was doing something genuinely good for other people outside his little sporting bubble. Arthur’s actions meant something. They helped people who were suffering. And it felt good. 

Also during that time, and arguably much more productively, he enjoyed several more neighbourly encounters with Merlin and Freya. At first, the two men stayed out in their respective back gardens, where they could chat over the hedge while the dogs enjoyed their usual freedoms. But Arthur, who had been brooding about his sister’s perfidy, wanted to broach the topic of his gentle revenge on Morgana with Merlin, and was not sure how. 

There was a natural break in the conversation and Arthur stared up at the sky, still wondering how to introduce the topic. 

“Go on. Spit it out.” Merlin lifted an interrogative eyebrow.

“Spit what out?” replied Arthur, who couldn't remember chewing any gum. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the ongoing barking, which was coming from the ornamental cherry at the bottom of Merlin’s garden. Freya had chased a squirrel and was labouring under the misapprehension that the rodent would stay there rather than escaping into the canopy of the neighbouring hawthorn. 

“Whatever it is you’ve got mulling over in that handsome skull of yours.” 

“How do you know I’m mulling something over?” Arthur replied, filing away the word _handsome_ for later enjoyment. 

Merlin rolled his eyes. “You’ve been staring at the sky for about ten minutes! So unless you’ve developed a sudden interest in meteorology, which I doubt, particularly as the sky is still the same rather glorious shade of blue as your unfairly pretty eyes, and has been for some weeks now, without any sign of changing, I suspect that means you’re mulling something over.” 

“I see.” _Unfairly pretty_ eyes? Arthur tucked that thought away in the same mental cupboard as the one about the word handsome, where the two thoughts danced together as such thoughts do, making all sorts of funny butterflies join in from deep his belly. 

Honestly, he did try not to preen, but sometimes it was difficult. 

“Oh? And what exactly do you see?” Merlin waggled one eyebrow and pushed those absurdly plump lips of his out in a ridiculous, lascivious parody of flirting that had no business being so sexy.

Never one to back down from a challenge, Arthur stepped forward and lowered his voice. “You mean… apart from a frankly unfeasible mop of inky hair that positively begs to be tamed?” he began. “And a sinful mouth that begs to be kissed. Apart from that?” 

Merlin dipped forward, voice lowering to match Arthur’s. “Do go on.” 

Arthur had just opened his mouth to add something to the effect that surely they had been socially isolating for long enough now, perhaps they could pop round to his place to continue this mutually intriguing conversation somewhere more private, and perhaps take it to a more logical conclusion, when of course, Cavall chose that moment to return from whatever revolting, smelly mess had been occupying him in some dank corner of the garden and plant his large, stinking paws on Arthur’s thighs, depositing something equally foul and brown on Arthur’s jeans. 

“Ugh, Cavall, your timing sucks,” he cried. 

“Woof.” Unconcerned, Cavall reached up to lick Arthur’s nose and coat his face in enthusiastic doggy kisses. 

“Looks like Cavall is trying to protect your honour,” laughed Merlin. “You’d better go and get that muck off your trousers, mate.” 

“Yeah.” With a sigh, Arthur talked himself down from whatever absurd fantasy had preoccupied him for a moment there, dazzled as he was by the brightness of Merlin’s smile against the backdrop of the perfect blue of the sky. “I suppose you’re right. But before that… I was going to say. Perhaps we could go for a walk together some time? Socially distanced, of course. The dogs would like that.” 

“Yeah.” Merlin’s smile if anything widened, making his eyes disappear into a blaze of crinkles. “And not just the dogs, either. I think I’d like that, too.” 

“Great. And perhaps…” Arthur bit his lip. “Um. Well. I’ve created a rival video streaming channel to my sister’s. It has nothing on it yet. But perhaps… perhaps… we could create some videos of our own. With… er… with Cavall in and… er… I wondered if perhaps Freya would… Only if you like, of course! But I think my fans, or rather Cavall’s fans, because let’s be real here, he’s the star of the show, would really, um, love. Appreciate, I mean. No, I mean love. They would love Freya too. Um.”

“Hmm,” said Merlin, smile turning sly as he tilted his head to one side. “Normally I’d jump at the chance but… It’s such a shame you’re a BBC commentator, not ITV or Sky.” 

“I do understand if you don’t… “ Arthur carried on for a moment before Merlin’s last comment sank in, at which point, he tailed off, bemused. “Wait. What’s wrong with the BBC? I fail to see why that’s relevant?” 

“Well. It’s the logo, you see.” Merlin spread his hands out in a wide shrug, as if that explained everything. 

“Let’s assume, for one moment,” growled Arthur, tamping down an unexpectedly painful stab of something that felt almost like disappointment, wrapped up in confusion, with a hefty dollop of irritation thrown in for good measure, “that I don’t.” 

Obviously Merlin was trying to back out of the whole thing without rejecting Arthur outright, so the gracious thing to do would be to play along with it. But it would have been such a perfect solution.

“Isn’t it obvious? The ITV logo is clearly superior. I’m not sure I can associate this aesthetic with a BBC logo.” With both hands, Merlin gestured towards the still bellowing Freya, who now had both front paws on the trunk of the tree while she bayed up at a pair of chittering squirrels. “Look at her.”

“Aah, now I understand,” said Arthur. “Clearly, the aesthetic is something that you need to consider more carefully before making a decision.” 

“All that black and white would clash with her coat.” Merlin nodded.

“Truly, your consideration speaks volumes.” Arthur let out a snort of laughter that probably didn’t quite hide his lingering sense of deflation. “Well, I’ll leave you to deliberate then—”

“Stop pouting! I’m teasing you, Arthur!” Merlin’s mouth tilted up on one side. 

Arthur trailed off, puzzled. “You are?”

“Oh, Arthur. Of course I am!” Merlin twinkled. “You look so adorably nonplussed when you’re all frowny and pouty. I can’t resist riling you. Sorry.” 

Arthur rolled his eyes, but a hard knot started to loosen in his throat as Merlin spoke. 

“And for some reason, you fall for it every time,” Merlin carried on. “As if you don’t even believe in how popular you are, or how much the people love you. I mean, have you seen yourself? What self-respecting gay boy could resist working with you?”

The knot loosened further and Arthur’s face heated up. 

“But I wouldn’t let just any good-looking sports-mad knucklehead work with my Freya…”

“Knucklehead?” objected Arthur, although by now any lingering doubts had gone and he was beginning to feel warmer in the face with every second that passed. 

“... obviously. Thankfully, Freya loves you. And more to the point, she loves Cavall.” 

“Well…” 

“We’d both love to. After all, while we’re both on furlough, there’s not much else to do, is there? Apart from laundry of course.” Merlin nodded down towards the muddy patch on Arthur’s trousers with a soft, almost apologetic smile.

It was funny how Merlin’s coquettish half-smile had the power to banish all Arthur’s remaining annoyance at being played. 

Truly the man had a panoply of charming expressions up his sleeve that could be deployed at any moment to sooth baffled broadcasters. Arthur could not ever remember spending time with someone who managed to be at the same time both annoying and disarming. Sophia had just made Arthur feel bad about himself, switching between criticism of Arthur’s many shortcomings when she was feeling uncharitable, which was most of the time, and cold spite when she did not get her way, which was most of the rest of the time. Arthur liked to think of himself as being fairly stoical and strong, but even he was beginning to admit that lockdown and quarantine with her would have been a lonely and depressing experience. And lockdown on his own would have been boring - probably unbearably so, especially given how smug Morgana was, shacked up with Gwen. But somehow this lockdown life with Merlin as his neighbour was turning out to be an exhilarating emotional roller coaster. Bewildering from time to time, yes. Downright scary in the next breath, yes. Sexually frustrating? Undoubtedly. But boring? Somehow Merlin would never be that. 

Resisting the temptation to propose a host of other things that they could be doing during this weird time, Arthur made a show of grimacing at the stain on his chinos before he turned to whistle for Cavall.


	9. Cavvy-Wavvy-Poo-Poo

Merlin could almost get used to lockdown, if he could go for walks with Arthur every day. Although obviously, he would never admit it to him. 

After the initial shock of attraction mingled with the awkwardness brought on by his neighbour’s celebrity, Merlin slipped easily into the routine of his daily walk with Arthur and the two dogs. It felt as if they had known each other for years, rather than the short few weeks of acquaintance thrust upon them by circumstance. 

Arthur, once he stopped trying to be a pompous prat, turned out to be remarkably good company while Freya and Cavall discovered in one another a mutual dislike of squirrels that kept the two of them amusingly occupied during their travels. And capturing the two dogs and their antics on film added an extra layer of enjoyment to the activity. Much to his own surprise, Merlin found himself looking forward to doing some daily exercise for the first time in his life. 

“It’s not a bad way to start the day, is it?” said Merlin one sunny Thursday in May as they entered the field where they could take the dogs off their leashes and let them get a proper run in. “Going for a walk, I mean. Off you go, Freya!” 

Arthur chuckled. “If you’d asked me three months ago, I would have thought you were mad, and that doing some team sports were infinitely preferable.” 

“That’s because you were good at them.” Merlin cast his mind back to his own school days, when he spent the majority of rugby and football sessions hovering towards the back of the pitch with Will instead of going near the ball. “If you’re as uncoordinated as me, sport is torture.”

“Yeah, you said. But I still love sport. I will admit that walking is great too, though.” 

“I can’t argue with that,” said Merlin. Over the weeks of regular walks, his fitness had improved and his breathing, too. Not that he’d ever admit that to Arthur, who was probably one of these annoying people who thought that everyone should love doing sport just because he did. “Anyway. Shall we let these dumb dogs off their leads, and film their idiocy for the world to enjoy?” 

“Let’s.” Slipping Cavall’s leash from his collar, Arthur gave him a pat. 

It took them a moment or two to set up the camera and recording equipment. Arthur had some fancy kit that he must have brought home from work, and he spent a minute or two fiddling with tripods and angles and lenses, which necessitated lots of crouching and bending, activities that required providing abundant views of his well-muscled, jean-clad bum. 

Merlin positioned himself carefully to enjoy the resulting view as much as possible. He may have been socially distancing, but he was only human.

Eventually, Arthur was satisfied with the set-up and called the two excited canines over before hurling his ball as far as he could into the undergrowth

As usual, Cavall bounded off into the long grass in totally the wrong direction, with Freya in tow, barking excitedly. 

“See?” Arthur sighed fondly. “Not a single brain cell between them.” 

Today’s footage, showing off as it did both the adorableness of the dogs and the breathtaking beauty of the English spring countryside, would make phenomenal viewing figures, Merlin was sure of that. Yeah, lockdown wasn’t so bad, if they could do this together, even though they were apart. 

But then when they got back to the pair of cottages, there was a car parked outside. 

“Oh, looks like we’ve got company. I wonder who that is? No-one’s meant to be coming down this lane, it’s residents only,” said Merlin, nodding at the red car that was parked outside their house. He laughed. “Must be one of your posh London mates. Right? No-one I know owns a Porsche. Not even Gaius, and he owns his own business. All right, so it’s just a pharmacy, but...”

But instead of replying, Arthur just stopped short of the gate, chewing his lip and ignoring the way that Cavall pulled and tugged and whined at the end of his leash. 

“Arthur?” 

“Hmm?” Arthur swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. 

“Arthur?” Merlin stopped by his gate, hand on the latch. “Is everything all right?” 

“What? Oh.” Finally, Arthur looked at him. “Yeah, sure.”

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Do you want me to…” 

“I’m fine. It’s just my ex-wife.” Face shuttering, Arthur straightened his shoulders, inhaled loudly as if preparing for battle, and stepped through his front gate, with Cavall at his heels. 

The gate slammed shut with an abrupt clatter.

Ex- _ wife _ ? Merlin swallowed, mood deflating. 

Of course, Arthur had mentioned before that he’d been going through a messy divorce... but somehow the likely implications of this statement had not registered before, blurred as they were by the happy haze of attraction and wishful thinking. But this.., the evidence was unequivocal. Merlin had been barking up the wrong tree this whole time.

Arthur was straight. 

***

“How the hell did you get into my back garden?” Arthur growled. 

Sophia was sitting on his deckchair, face tipped up to the sun. A pair of achingly fashionable sunglasses adorned her eyes and her hair was immaculately coiffed. Where she had managed to find a hairdresser willing to risk their health and livelihood by defying the quarantine rules, Arthur really did not wish to know. 

“The gate was open.” Pushing her sunglasses up to her head, Sophia shrugged, scrunching her face up in a way that he might once have found adorable. “Aren’t you going to ask me into the house, Arty?” 

“No.” Arthur paced around, while an unconcerned Cavall curled up on the decking, panting in the heat. Weeks ago, he would have been delighted to see her, probably welcomed her in with open arms in direct contravention of the latest government guidance. But she was too late. His pain of her betrayal had passed, and with it had grown a realisation of just how much she had screwed him over. And prior to that, even. With her constant carping and belittling… he did not need that kind of negativity in his life. “I want to know what you think you’re doing here.” 

She pouted, eyelashes fluttering. “Aren’t I allowed to come and visit my ex-husband and my darling doggy? Here, Cavvy Wavvy!”

“He’s called Cavall,” growled Arthur. Resuming the pacing, he stared down at her, hands on hips. “And he’s my dog, now.”

“But, darling—” she began.

“Don’t darling me!” Arthur roared. “I have no desire to see you, spend time with you, or enrich your grasping, greedy little person any further.” 

“Arthur!” she gasped, eyes glistening. “How can you say such things! You always did have a cruel streak!” She introduced just the right amount of tremor into her voice. A masterful performance indeed. “I just want my doggy back, that’s all. I’ve missed you, Cavvy-Wavvy-poo-poo!” 

This last statement was directed at the dog. Having walked over to him where he lay lolling on the deck, she rubbed his upturned tummy with one delicately posed hand, conspicuously failing to disguise the way her pretty nose wrinkled when it encountered the pervading scent of labrador that followed Cavall everywhere he went. 

Arthur snorted. The movement of her fingers was so delicate that Cavall probably didn’t even notice. 

He was under no illusions about her sudden enthusiasm for the puppy. She had left Cavall with him without a thought. Cavall’s recent celebrity could be the only reason for it. If there was one thing that Sophia loved more than wealth and its trappings, it was notoriety. It was probably what attracted her to him in the first place, after all. How could he not have seen that? And then once the novelty wore off, she moved on to the next shiny thing, like a magpie. 

Cavall, with his internet following, was just the latest shiny thing. 

Well, Arthur would not let her do that to Cavall. Dogs gave their hearts and their loyalty without question or inhibition, and they deserved to be treated the same way, not discarded when they became big and smelly and stopped being cute. 

“You’re not fooling anyone, Sophia.” He crossed his arms. “I know what you want, and you can not have my dog. You already have my flat, my Porsche, and you took away my dignity many months ago, but, God damn it, I will not let you have my dog! Cavall, heel!” 

For once, Cavall, trained by weeks of delightful walks with Merlin and Freya, not to mention about a metric ton of dog treats, did what Arthur asked and hauled himself to his feet before trotting across to muzzle at Arthur’s hand. 

“Good dog.” Satisfied, Arthur lifted his chin towards Sophia and gestured curtly towards the gate. “You see? He’s my dog now. Mine! As for you, Sophia, you can get out.” 

“But Arty…” With an abrupt movement, she bent to pet Cavall’s head with tentative, red-taloned fingers. 

Cavall growled then, a noise he’d only ever made to squirrels before, and snapped at her hand. 

Sophia shrieked, backing away, clutching her hand to her chest. “It tried to bite me!” 

“He did not.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “You have no idea how to treat dogs, do you?” 

“I’ll report it to the environmental health officer! It’s a monster! A brute! It should be put down.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

Her mouth pressed into a tight, spiteful little moue. “It’s all your fault. It was fine, before you started training it. But you spoil everything, don’t you, Arthur.” 

Cavall’s growl turned into a deep snarl which pushed her further into retreat, making laughter bubble up in Arthur’s chest. 

He laughed out loud. He couldn’t help it! She looked so comical, clutching her handbag to her chest as if it were a magical object that could ward off fierce, barking creatures. 

“It’s not funny,” she cried. “How could you laugh at a time like this? Shoo!” She waved the bag at Cavall, who just stood barking at her defiantly. 

It was strange how much better Arthur was feeling with every moment that passed. When he had first seen her, his heart had plummeted and he had felt an old tension building in his gut, one that he had forgotten about in all these months of her absence. But now… the more she carped and sniped at him, the better he felt. She had lost the power to hurt him with her words. His self esteem was no longer wrapped up in her regard. In fact, he felt a little bit sorry for her, even. She seemed diminished, somehow. 

“Look,” he began, shushing Cavall with a calming hand on the soft hairs of his head, and petting his ears. “If you had paid him any attention at all when he was a puppy, he would be your friend for life now. But he is my friend, and I can say with all honesty that I am the better for it. Now I suggest you go. You’re upsetting him with your noise and tension.”

“I don’t care,” she spat. “I’ll have the police onto you for keeping a dangerous dog. It should be muzzled, before it hurts someone.” 

“Cavall?” Arthur laughed again. “Now you’re being silly. He’s a big softy, aren’t you Cavall. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, would you?” 

Bang on cue, Cavall growled again, a menacing noise deep in his throat that made his head rumble underneath Arthur’s fingertips. 

“I think he’s saying that you should get out.” Arthur nodded towards the gate. “I agree with him.”

“I am going.” She turned to leave but not before her sweet, innocent expression transformed into a venomous pout. “You’ll regret this, Arthur Pendragon,” she hissed, hand on the gate. 

“I very much doubt that,” he replied, ruffling Cavall’s soft, warm coat absently. 

When the Porsche departed a few minutes later in a squeal of tyres and growl of heavily revved engine, it felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. 

He went out to the gate to check that she had really gone, leaning on the gate post with his arms folded, watching the rear lights as the car disappeared down the lane. Every so often he winced when it dipped, which meant it had hit a pothole. The poor car did not deserve potholes. Nor did it deserve Sophia, for that matter. 

When he turned to go back inside the house, a flash of light in the window of Merlin’s house caught his eye. Arthur looked up and frowned, but the light had gone. All he could see in the window was Merlin's crudely drawn "Thank You NHS" rainbow. It must have been the reflection of the setting sun. 


	10. My Stomach Is Simone Biles

Like her brother, Morgana Pendragon was ill-suited to solitude. However, unlike Arthur, she was isolating with someone she loved, which made everything a lot more bearable. In fact, life with Gwen was more than bearable. In many ways, she should be grateful for the lockdown that had forced them to move in together in the remote Cotswold cottage that Morgana normally rented to holidaymakers. Together, they were busy growing vegetables and uploading ever-more-popular videos of Gwen’s cooking to their social media channel. 

Above all, it was wonderful avoiding spending time with all the annoying peons who blighted her daily London life. Instead, she could issue instructions via video conference, safe in the knowledge that her team were all so terrified about losing their jobs that they would carry them out without quibbling. 

Talking about annoying peons, she definitely was not missing Arthur at all. Nor was she worrying about his disastrous love life. Not one bit. 

“Whose dog is that with Cavall, anyway?” she muttered while she stared suspiciously at the screen. Her interest was purely academic, of course. Mere curiosity. Nothing more than that. “Does it belong to the snarky neighbour, do we think? The one that he had the run-in with, the other week?” 

“Hmm?” Gwen sat down next to her. “What dog? Here, have one of these. Tell me which one has the moistest texture.” She proffered a tray of rosemary and cracked black pepper scones, taking one herself before nodding at the screen. “What are you watching?” she added, voice muffled by crumbs.

With a thoughtful bite out of the first scone, Morgana gestured at her screen. “This dog. It’s more like a rug with legs, don’t you think?” She clicked  _ play _ before taking a grabbing and sampling a second scone. “Mmm.” She licked her lips. “This one, definitely.” 

“Oh, good. That’s from the butter-only batch.” With a nod, Gwen grabbed the pen from behind her ear and scribbled something on her clipboard, which she then put aside, tucking her legs under her skirt and frowning slightly as she concentrated on Morgana’s laptop, to watch the unfolding action. “Wow. It’s got loads more views than our ones are getting.”

“He’s set up his own channel,” pouts Morgana. “And worse, he’s stopped sending us videos.”

“Good. you should have asked his permission before uploading them anyway,” Gwen points out. 

“But they were so adorable!” 

“It’s about consent, Morgana!” 

“Stop being so reasonable.” 

_ The lens is trained on a green field, close-cropped near the camera, and strewn with long grass and wildflowers further out. A distant patchwork of fields and hedgerows is interrupted only by a couple of pylons and darker-green smudges of woodland. A large oak tree dominates the horizon.  _

_ Into this vision appears a ball, held on the end of a short stick. Shortly afterwards, the camera pans to focus on not one, but two patiently sitting dogs. The first, as Morgana expects, is the familiar figure of Cavall, short-haired and muscular, his tongue protruding from one side of his mouth as he pants in the unseasonal sunshine. The other, however, is a leaner mixed breed of some sort, covered with a thick mat of shaggy, jet-black fur.  _

“Poor thing must be boiling with all that hair,” murmured Gwen. 

_ “And now, we have a new contender for today’s  _ which dog has the brain cell? _ competition,” whispers Arthur’s hushed voice off screen. “Cavall, the trophy holder, is going to be seeing off a stiff challenge from Freya, the wily if hirsute contender, her shaggy coat seemingly no obstacle even in this heat.”  _

_ “Hirsute? That’s a big word for you!” says another off-screen voice that Morgana doesn’t recognise. _

_ The camera zooms out to follow the arc of the ball across the field, with two excited dogs following afterwards like streaks of lightning, one golden, one black.  _

_ “And they’re off,” says Arthur in his commentator voice. “Cavall takes on an easy early lead. Good pace. Is he going to go for the easy option and head straight into the long grass? Oh no, the ball strikes his body and then it’s gone off course… and here comes Freya, showing why she’s such a contender. What an athlete this dog is. With her dogged determination…” _

_ “Dogged? Nice pun! That was quite good. For you!” quips the other voice. _

_ “...with her dogged determination,” interrupts Arthur, a little louder. “She has a clear cut opportunity while Cavall is still thrashing around in the grass… and breaking news, he has just swallowed a grasshopper. Well that’s not going to win him any medals, I’m afraid. Freya comes bounding back, showing why she’s such a firm favourite with the crowd…”  _

“Whose is she?” wondered Gwen. “Who’s the other person, Morgana?”

Morgana shook her head. Who indeed?

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m going to find out.” 

***

Oblivious to the fact that he was the subject of such curiosity, Merlin stood outside Arthur’s front door, hand raised to press the bell. Before he had a chance to do so, the door opened, and Cavall came bounding out, greeting Freya with a delighted bark. The two dogs went careening around Arthur’s front garden while Arthur pulled on a lightweight jacket. 

“Where shall we go today? The usual?” Merlin stepped back to provide the requisite amount of social distance and God, Arthur must have just stepped out of the shower, because his hair clung to his head, a damp dark-gold with bright, glistening tips to it. 

Momentarily stunned, Merlin gazed at him, biting his lip. This was so unfair. How could straight men be so gorgeous like that? There should be a law against straight boys looking so good when their hopelessly infatuated gay next-door neighbours were struggling to get rid of their inappropriate crushes. Mood deflating by the moment, Merlin debated running back inside and slamming the door to dim the sheer brightness of Arthur’s self-deprecating half smile. 

Instead, he resolved to harden his heart against Arthur’s inadvertent wiles. He swallowed, hard, and looked at a deteriorating strand of wisteria instead. There. That was better. 

“Why not?” Seemingly unaware of Merlin’s sudden indisposition, Arthur whistled. Cavall stopped sniffing at the tangled hedgerow and trotted up to nuzzle Arthur’s hand instead, sitting down with surprising obedience. “I’ve bought a couple of new frisbees for them to play with. A red one for Cavall, which hopefully he’ll find more entertaining that the usual squirrel chasing, and a green one for Freya because she’s always munching bits of greenery she shouldn’t.”

And that was another one of the deeply unfair things about Arthur. His ability to suddenly stop being a total prat and reveal the heart of gold that lurked just under the surface, and could be tempted out by canine friends, neighbours, small children and other needy creatures. Together with that crooked smile of his, those sweet moments of kindness that escaped from Arthur when he forgot to be a prat were enough to crush all Merlin’s best resolutions and incinerate them amid a seething mess of confusing, painful hormones. 

This sort of thing should not be allowed. There should be laws against it. 

“There was no need to do that!” protested Merlin, indignant on behalf of his own poor, bruised heart. “Freya’s got loads of toys!” 

“Yes, well, she’s generated loads of hits on my channel, it was the least I could do.” Arthur smiled, making his eyes twinkle and bringing out the devastating symmetry of his jawline. 

Sometimes Arthur was so unfairly beautiful that it robbed Merlin of all speech. Even on a dull, grey-skies day like this one, he glowed bright enough to dazzle. Not only was his hair new-washed and fragrant, Arthur had clearly shaved, because there was a waft of aftershave that made Merlin salivate. Plus, Arthur had put on a pair of form-hugging trousers that did nothing to hide his muscular thighs, and a football shirt that clung to the curve of his biceps. And there he was, standing on his doorstep, a half smile lifting one side of his mouth, his eyes soft and a ridiculous shade of blue that put the sky to shame… 

Quite frankly, it was all Merlin could do to stop himself from prostrating himself at Arthur’s feet and proclaiming his undying love on the spot. 

But Arthur was straight. He must be, with that gorgeous ex wife of his. Not to mention out of his league. All that time that Merlin had thought he stood even the remotest of chances… all those weeks of hopefulness had vanished the moment he clapped eyes on Arthur’s decidedly female ex, with her red Porsche and model-like beauty. Not for the first time, Merlin had been deluding himself that there might be a spark of mutual attraction. 

“Merlin? Is everything all right?” The dazzling, kilowatt smile dimmed a little and a concerned line appeared between Arthur’s brows. “You look…” 

“I’m fine.” Swallowing down his disappointment, Merlin forced himself to meet Arthur’s rapidly fading grin with one of his own, hoping he did not look too manic. He fluttered his hand around his chest. “Just a bit of heartburn. You know. Ate my breakfast too quick, haha.” 

Heartburn? Heart break, more like. Why did he always have to fall for the straight boys? When would he ever learn? It was just like that time with Gilli all over again. 

No, Merlin would have to content himself with just enjoying walks with Arthur, and ogling his bum from afar. He would have to try to extinguish his burning attraction. But gods, it was hard. With Arthur the only person he saw regularly during this lockdown, it was little wonder that he was beginning to obsess about him. 

“As long as you’re okay.” Arthur stepped out, keeping the requisite six feet distant, and stooped to snap Cavall’s leash onto his collar. 

“If I start coughing, don’t worry. It’s only asthma!” said Merlin. “Not the virus. It can’t be; I haven’t seen anyone except you for the last three weeks anyway. Unless you count the supermarket food deliveries.” 

“I’m not worried.” Arthur said. “Not about me getting the virus, anyway. I don’t think I’m really at great risk. I’m more worried about when the Premier League will start up again, to be honest.”

“Oh, I see what you mean,” teased Merlin. “Because, I mean, God forbid that a few over-paid teenagers won’t be getting paid more than I will in an entire year to chase a ball around a field for an hour and a half any time soon.” 

“You sound like my sister! It’s my  _ job, Mer _ lin! You are mocking my livelihood, here!” 

“Oops!” 

“I’m quite hurt.” 

“You’re not.” 

“Am. But I’m not going to let the words of a mere embittered, furloughed pharmacist bother me.”

“And I’m not going to let the words of a straight, good-looking prat bother me, either, so we’re even.”

“I take umbrage at that description.” 

“Oh? You deny you are good-looking, then?” 

Arthur rolled his eyes. “No,  _ Mer _ lin. I deny that I’m straight.” 

“You do? But your ex…” Confused, Merlin trailed off, blinking at Arthur whilst simultaneously attempting to tamp down a wild nugget of hope that had started doing flip-flops in his stomach.

“I’m bi, Merlin. Which means that while I have in the past found myself unaccountably attracted to a sociopathic though undeniably pretty woman like my ex I have been known, on occasion, by which I mean now, to take a shine to opinionated, furloughed pharmacists of the male persuasion. Puzzling, isn't it?”

“Mystifying,” agreed Merlin. The hopeful thing that had been fluttering in his chest stopped doing flip-flops and started on the double-back somersaults, adding the occasional half twist. It was a veritable Simone Biles of a hopeful thing. It would be embarking on the vault next and careening across the asymmetric bars. 

So flustered was he that for a moment he missed the fact that they had nearly reached what would be today’s ultimate destination.

“So. These two are becoming quite the internet celebrities.” Arthur said as he paused, hand on the stile. “Are you okay with that?”

“Sure!” Merlin shrugged, grateful for the change in topic that would allow him to get those gymnastic stomach butterflies under control. “Freya doesn’t mind.”

“Have you shown the videos to your family yet?” 

“Yeah. My mum thinks that Cavall’s adorable.” 

“Cavall is adorable.” Arthur flipped a smug, lop-side smile his way. “Just like his owner.” 

“Oh, yeah,” croaked Merlin, stomach butterflies returning with a vengeance. “And unlike his owner, modest, with it.” 

“I notice you don’t deny my adorability.” 

“There’s no point.” Merlin hopped over the stile, while Freya opted to squeeze underneath it. “You’re already convinced of it.” He turned back with a cheeky grin, to find that Arthur was staring at him with a strange expression on his face. “What?”

“Hmm? Oh! Um.” Arthur coughed and glanced up at the sky. “I was just… I was just… admiring um. Freya’s technique at squeezing through gaps. It’s like watching hairy toothpaste.”

Merlin snorted. “That analogy really doesn’t work.” 

“You know what I mean, though. It looks geometrically impossible.” 

“Like fitting your ego into this tiny field?” Merlin gestured towards the open space which could easily house two football pitches. 

Arthur barked out a surprised laugh, which tugged at the corners of his eyes and made them soften and crinkle at the edges, all the while glowing a bright, impossible blue that eclipsed even the dome of the sky. 

It was no good. Merlin was so gone on this man, he could barely speak. Swallowing, he held Arthur’s gaze for just a little bit longer than he should. 

How unfair it was that Arthur, as well as having a warm voice that charmed and excited, should be so beautiful. In years gone by, he would have had Michaelangelo and his ilk clubbing together to buy the most expensive pigments to do justice to the dark gold of his hair, the luminous blue of his eyes. 

Arthur had one foot on the stile, his eyebrow making an enquiring arc. There was a hint of a challenge to the lazy flip of his eyelids that made Merlin’s belly clench and his mouth go dry. His hands twitched with the effort of not reaching out to touch. Just then, a breath of wind chose to waft the tantalising scent of Arthur’s after-shave across to him, and Merlin was aware that he had been staring, but he was still processing the fact that Arthur was bi. 

He wanted more than anything to go away and mull that over far from the impact of Arthur’s undeniable presence. Because at the moment, the way that his heart thudded and his stomach contracted at the mere sight, sound, and  _ smell  _ of the prat could easily push him over the edge into a dangerous rashness that would break all the quarantine rules and put his own health at risk, not to mention Arthur’s. Instead he stood, breathing hard as if he had been running rather than walking, and tried to will down his physiological response to all that charisma. 

“What?” said Arthur, softly. 

“Nothing. Just… my stomach is Simone Biles, that’s all.” 


	11. Bow to the Mighty Penguin

With a growing sense of frustration, Arthur realised that if he were going to get anywhere with Merlin, he would have to make the first move. Because despite all his attempts at hints and seductive techniques, declarations of attraction and even resorting to answering the door after a shower while wearing his most expensive aftershave, Merlin had stubbornly remained a careful six feet away. 

Arthur was not an idiot, whatever Morgana might say to the contrary. He could read the signs. By the way that Merlin’s pupils dilated whenever he looked at Arthur, from the mere fact of his tendency to lose his train of thought and spend several seconds staring at Arthur’s mouth mid-sentence, Merlin was definitely interested. But something – whether it was this bloody virus, or some other inhibition that Arthur didn’t quite understand yet – was holding him back from acting on it. 

Arthur was still inwardly debating his next move a few days later while they were walking together down the quiet lane in the direction of their houses. They had spent the morning filming the dogs gambolling in the pond with their new frisbees. As usual, the combination of Cavall’s youthful enthusiasm and Freya’s more reluctant participation made for some great footage. The fans were going to love it. 

The problem was that he wasn’t sure how to approach the subject. But really, if he didn’t do anything soon he thought he would die of frustration. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” said Merlin. 

“What makes you think I’ve got something I want to talk about?” said Arthur with a frown. 

“You’ve been brooding about something for the last ten minutes.” 

“I do not brood!” objected Arthur. “Why does everyone keep insisting that I brood? You do it all the time, Morgana does it all the time… I’m not a hen, Merlin. Hens brood.” 

“No, you’re a clotpole.” Merlin snorted. “Okay… so something’s definitely bothering you. So I’ll ask again. Want to talk about it?”

“Well. I suppose. There is something.” Arthur’s face burned. Why was this so hard? Despite the clear invitation from Merlin to open up, there was no way that he could articulate his feelings directly. “It’s just… you know. I… I miss… um... certain things,” he said lamely. 

What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just come out and say the words? 

“Things?” said Merlin with a sly grin. “Like focaccia?”

“Yeah,” said Arthur, fishing about for a way to express how he felt. “I mean, okay. This is the thing. I’m having weird dreams. Like, last night I dreamt about Wotsits.” 

Merlin stopped short, making Freya pull on his lead. “Oh, God, me too!” 

“Seriously?” Arthur stopped, too, mouth dropping open. “You dreamed about _Wotsits_? That’s a bit of a coincidence!”

“ _Wotsits?_ Oh!” Merlin’s face went an adorable shade of beetroot. “I see! You said Wotsits. I thought you said... um… “

“Spit it out, Merlin,” growled Arthur. 

“I thought you said _hot sex_!” Merlin blurted out. “I was going to commiserate! I thought you were going to say that you miss having hot sex, because bloody hell, I certainly do. It’s an easy mistake to make! I mean _hot sex_ sounds a bit like _Wotsits_. Hot sex. Wotsits. You know?” 

“Hot sex. Oh, my God.” A deep wellspring of laughter bubbled up, making Arthur double over. Tears streamed from his eyes as he laughed, banishing a whole load of tension from his shoulders. He held his ribs and laughed and laughed and laughed. 

“It’s not that funny!” said Merlin sulkily, but a smile was tugging at his lips all the same. “I’m frustrated! I haven’t had a dry period like this since I was at school!”

“Yeah.” Arthur sighed, letting the last vestiges of his laughter die on his lips “I do know what you mean. I mean, at least I can remember the last time I had some cheesy Wotsits.” 

“Exactly!” said Merlin, lifting a triumphant finger. “Wotsits, yes. Hot sex, no.” 

“Although Tesco substituted Monster Munch in my last delivery.” Arthur shook his head in sorrow. “I was devastated.”

“A travesty,” said Merlin solemnly.

They turned to carry on with their walk. There was a slightly awkward silence, punctuated only by the tap tap of their feet and the dogs’ paws on tarmac. Arthur had just opened his mouth to point out the silhouette of a circling bird of prey above their heads, and maybe segue into a question about when the last time Merlin had hot sex, and whether he’d be interested in breaking quarantine to have another go, when an unfamiliar sound approached from the rear. 

Cavall stopped and whined, tugging on his leash, back and tail ramrod straight. Arthur glanced over his shoulder to see what was making him nervous. 

“Bugger.” Hastily, Arthur shortened the leash.

“What’s up?” Merlin turned to follow his gaze. “They’re only horses, Arthur. It’s not forbidden to ride horses, you know. And this is a rural area, after all.” 

“Yeah, Merlin, I understand that, idiot! But Cavall’s never seen a horse. He probably thinks they’re extra-big dogs. He’ll probably run up to them barking and try to sniff their bums. They’ll kick him to smithereens! 

Merlin shrugged. “Ah. Well, he’s got to learn about them some time. But you might want to hold onto him. You don’t want to spook the horses, especially not in a narrow lane like this. Freya, heel.” 

“I know that! I’m not a complete idiot!” Arthur grabbed Cavall’s his collar, just in case. “Cavall, heel!”

But while Freya did Merlin’s bidding, sitting by his side with her tongue lolling out like some sort of demented-looking muppet, Cavall bared his teeth and sounded out a deep growl, which was merely the prelude. The main event was him straining against Arthur’s hold, launching into a flurry of excited barking that made one of the horses, a beautiful bay with carefully plaited mane, shy away with her hooves shuffling and side-stepping noisily on the tarmac. Luckily, the rider seemed like a no-nonsense sort, a woman in her mid-thirties who quickly got the horse back under control while the younger rider behind her hung back.

“Stop it Cavall!” Arthur exclaimed, mortified, even as he held on tight, because Cavall was getting strong, and the barking was intensifying. “Hush, now, Cavall! Sit! Sit down! Sit!” 

Eventually, Cavall sat with a final disgruntled bark. 

“Good boy. Good boy.” Arthur looked up to apologise. “So sorry! He’s never seen a horse before!” 

“It’s okay,” said the other rider. She smiled at him. “Thanks for keeping him under control.” 

“I’m trying. Stay, Cavall.” 

Cavall whined, but he didn’t get up. 

“Very trying,” murmured Merlin.

“I heard that.” 

Crouching, Arthur held Cavall close, murmuring praise into his ears. The dog’s body went tight with indignation while the horses walked past, tails swishing. There was a tense moment when Cavall gave a little forward lurch towards the two swaying rears, but Arthur held on tight. Once the horses had gone, Arthur let out a sigh of relief and gave Cavall a little more length on his lead, telling him what a good boy he was and rewarding him with a treat from his pocket and a fuss around his ears. 

“Well done.” Merlin smiled at him in that disarming way that he had of making his eyes disappear behind a joyful blaze of mirth. “You handled that really well.” 

“Thanks.” Arthur couldn’t help preening a little at the praise. 

“I love horses, but they’re even more unpredictable than dogs.” Merlin stopped for a moment for Freya to sniff at some leaves. 

“Yeah,” said Arthur. “I love horses too. I used to ride a lot, when I was younger. I think they’re my favourite animals.” 

“You rode horses?”

“What’s so weird about that?” 

“Well. It’s just.” Merlin shrugged. “You’re such a rough, tough manly type. Horse riding… Isn’t that a bit of a girly thing to do?” 

“Sure.” Arthur rolled his eyes. “Because obviously, there’s nothing less manly than controlling a half a metric tonne of paranoid, borderline insane muscle with the power of your thighs and calves alone. Cavall, put that down.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” 

There was a moment of activity while Arthur tried to persuade Cavall to relinquish his vice-like grip on something that he’d found in the ditch, with limited success. 

“Drop it,” said Arthur as sternly as he could. “Drop it, Cavall!” 

Eventually the thing (it might have once been a tennis ball, it was hard to be sure) was dropped and disposed of into a dog-poo bag and they carried on down the lane. 

“So,” said Merlin, whistling between his teeth to get Freya to stop sniffing at a telegraph pole. “Stop it, Freya. Horse riding. That speech about the manly thighs sounded rehearsed. Sensitive topic?” 

“Just a little,” said Arthur, pulling a face. “I mean, you’ll thank me for the excuse next time you have to try explaining to the under fifteens rugby team why you can’t play in the tournament because you’ve got to go to a gymkhana.” 

“Sounds scarring.” 

“You have no idea.” 

When Merlin laughed, it was such a natural and musical sound, rich and almost melodic, it sent an unexpected stab of longing shooting through Arthur’s chest. He squashed it, choosing to focus on the way that the air lifted Merlin’s dense mane of dark-auburn hair. But that was no good, because looking at Merlin’s head just made Arthur’s hands ache to tame those curls, to tug at them until they did his bidding. 

Swallowing, Arthur blinked away the sudden, painful sensation and tried to focus on the twitter of the birds and the flutter of insects in the hedgerow instead. 

“So,” said Merlin a few minutes later. “If we exclude horses and dogs, for now, because we are obviously biased, what’s the best animal, then?” 

“That’s easy. Penguin,” Arthur replied promptly. 

“How can you say that?” said Merlin in mock outrage. “It’s obviously the giraffe.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous, _Mer_ lin. Penguins are vastly superior! For a start off, giraffes can’t fly!” 

“Nor can penguins!” 

“Yes they can! They fly underwater!” 

“That’s not flying, prat! That’s swimming!” 

“Well giraffes can’t swim, either,” cried Arthur, triumphantly. “So, ha! Bow to the mighty penguin!” 

Merlin snorted. “That’s an image that will give me nightmares later!” 

Their discussion had become so animated that the dogs started to join in - Cavall with a lolling tongue and rolling-eyed bark, and Freya with a volley of affirmative woofs, as if to say that clearly dogs were vastly superior to any other species, so the argument was moot. 

Arthur could not see any reason to disagree.


	12. Merging Households

What with all the government advice changing every day, not to mention his limited patience for listening to all that lying and bumbling incompetence, Merlin had given up on listening to the PM’s daily briefing. As a result, he had begun to lose track of what was allowed in terms of social interaction and what wasn’t. It didn’t really occur to him that any of the changes in advice might apply to someone like him — at least, not until he had his weekly conversation with Gwaine. 

From this angle, all Merlin could see of Gwaine was a bare, washboard stomach and a stubbly chin. 

“How’s it goin’ Merls?” yawned Gwaine. 

“Awful.” 

“In what way?” 

“Just…” Merlin sighed heavily, wondering how exactly to express his frustration about the fact that he couldn’t just pop next door and ravage his neighbour’s gorgeous arse. But he didn’t have to. After all, everyone was in the same boat, weren’t they? Even Gwaine. In fact, Gwaine, of all people, would understand how he felt without having to put it into words. “Bloody pandemic. You know how it is, right?”

“Right.” 

“So, how are you?” Merlin dug into a packet of cheesy Wotsits, newly arrived from Tesco, and popped one into his mouth. It fizzed as it dissolved on his tongue. 

“Fucking awesome. I’m knackered, though.” A tin of Diet Coke appeared in view on the tablet and Gwaine took a swig, choking when it spilled all over his chin. “Fuck,” he sputtered, sitting up.

“Serves you right for being so damn lazy,” Merlin chuckled. “And what’s with the Diet Coke? That’s not like you. Or is it laced with vodka?”

“Nah, mate.” Gwaine stretched out languidly, lifting his phone up above his head so that he could grin up at Merlin. “Percy’s keeping me on the straight and narrow.” 

“Percy?” 

“Yeah. We’ve merged households. Hey, Percy. Say hi to Merlin.” 

The picture went wobbly for a bit and then a handsome-looking bloke with square jaw and blue eyes peered enquiringly at Merlin. 

“Hi,” said the bloke. 

“Hi.” Nonplussed, Merlin blinked back. 

“You should see his muscles.” Gwaine’s face reappeared in view, and he winked lasciviously at the phone. 

“His muscles?” 

“Oh, yeah. He’s got biceps like a fucking tree.”

“Ri-ight… and… so… what do you mean by _merged households_ , exactly?” said Merlin, heart sinking. A sudden realisation was dawning that, contrary to his initial thoughts, Gwaine was about as far away from being in the same boat as it was possible to be. Depressed, Merlin emptied the rest of the packet of Wotsits into his mouth and debated opening another one. 

“What do you think we mean, mate?” Gwaine was saying, confirming Merlin’s darkest thoughts. “We’ve been merging in a variety of interesting ways. I could be more specific, if you like? I mean, last night we merged three times – once on the sofa, and twice upstairs. And let me tell you, Percival is a master of the art of merging. I’ve got the bruises to prove it. One time, he—”

“I mean,” said Merlin, hastily, before Gwaine could go into any further detail. “Erm how did you… I mean, aren’t you meant to be… I mean, there’s still a pandemic on and—” 

“It’s okay Merls, don’t get your knickers in a twist. Haven’t you been watching the news? Merging households is okay now. It’s basically government sanctioned sex! Thank you, Boris! The bloke’s an arse, and a terrible Prime Minister, but he understands the importance of regular fucking. Must do, the number of bastards he’s got floating around the place.”

“Erm, I’m not sure that’s exactly what the government means by—” 

“I know, I know, mental health, vulnerable people, yadda yadda. Anyhoo, I’m an extrovert, mate, and I’ve got a libido. I can’t sit in limbo all day waiting for stuff to happen on the phone. I was so sex starved I thought about fucking the vacuum cleaner. Percy here rescued me from an embarrassing visit to Accident and Emergency.”

“Hey!” came a protest off-screen. “I’m not just a love machine.”

“Sorry, Perce. You’re right of course. You’re not just a pretty face with a monster cock, thighs like tree trunks and piston-like arse action. No, you’re so much more than that… You cook vegetables and everything.” 

“Thanks, Gwaine,” said Percy’s disembodied voice. “It’s nice to know I’m appreciated.”

And to Merlin’s shock, Gwaine wasn’t the only one who had euphemistically _merged households_. Will was blissfully shacked up with his girlfriend Sefa, and even his mother had taken on a Scottish physiotherapist named Alator as a lodger. With his shaved head and tattoos he appeared very different from her usual type, but nevertheless seemed to be making her happy. 

All of which was bad enough, but it was the very limit when he called Gaius to give him an update on the progress of the vegetable patch, only to find that even his elderly uncle had company. 

“Your runner beans are coming on nicely,” Merlin was saying into his tablet. “And so are the potatoes, but the onions don’t seem to be doing much and the squirrels have got at the cherry bloss— Whoa! Who the fuck is that?” 

“Hmm?” Gaius turned his head, prompted by the wobbling of Merlin’s pointing finger. “Oh! I forgot you didn’t know. That’s Alice,” said Gaius blithely, raising both eyebrows as if to say what of it? “We’ve… what’s the term they’re using now? Dear me, my memory is not what it was.”

“Merged, dear,” said Alice, leaning to place a cup of tea on Gaius’s desk.

Merlin nearly choked on his chocolate Hob-nob.

“Ah, yes! Thank you dear! That’s the one. We’ve merged, Merlin. Merged households. Now, have you fed the roses on the trellis?” 

All this happy household merging gave him much food for thought. So deeply ensconced in such thoughts was he, one sunny morning as he watered the runner beans, that he did not even hear Arthur’s persistent attempts to grab his attention until the prat literally yelled “Oi! Merlin! You oblivious peasant!” over the hedge. 

“There’s no need to be rude!” said Merlin. 

“You were away with the fairies. Must be all that hair. Blocking your ears or overheating your brain or something.”

“I was deep in thought,” retorted Merlin. “You know, thinking? It’s what intelligent people do. You should try it some time.” 

A sudden impulse occurred to him and he turned the nozzle of his hose towards Arthur, rotating it to the most powerful jet setting, and let fly.

“Argh! You cheeky bastard!” spluttered Arthur, from behind a curtain of wet hair. 

“Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it,” said Merlin, laughing and spraying himself. “See? It’s lovely!”

With temperatures soaring well into the eighties fahrenheit, being sprinkled with a hosepipe was quite a pleasant activity. Not to mention the fact that the wet fabric of Arthur’s t-shirt was now clinging to his well-formed pecs in a thoroughly appealing way. 

“So, what’s got you so distracted, anyway?” Arthur said after a few more minutes, by which time both men were thoroughly soaked. “I was calling for ages.”

“Oh, it just seems like everyone I know has merged households,” said Merlin without thinking about the implications, much. Thinking about implications or indeed anything much was a bit tricky given the level of distraction posed by The sight of Arthur’s nipples through his wet shirt. “I was wondering who I’d…!” He trailed off, staring at Arthur, open mouthed. Surely Arthur wouldn’t… 

“Now you look even more gormless than usual,” said Arthur. “Catching flies are you? Wait. What did you just say?”

“Hmm? I was just… wondering who…” 

“Before that.” 

“About… merging households?” Licking his lips, Merlin blinked slowly, letting his field of view encompass the saturated outline of Arthur’s thickly muscled torso, and lifted both eyebrows with what he hoped was unmistakable intent. “Have you… have you considered merging households with anyone yet?” 

It was a loaded question, but from the appraising lift of Arthur’s chin, not an unwelcome one. “Not yet,” said Arthur eventually, his voice deepening to a low purr that sent tendrils of excitement sparking deep into Merlin’s gut. “But I’m certainly considering it now.” 

“Me too,” breathed Merlin. “I’ve got some cheesy Wotsits. Perhaps I could share them with you...” 

“I’d rather have hot sex than Wotsits,” said Arthur in a low growl that clutched onto Merlin’s already excited libido and gave it a hefty tweak. 

They held one another’s gaze for a moment or two longer before Arthur ran towards the low fence at one end of their shared hedge, and hurdled it in one leap. In a few blinks of an eye, the two men were facing one another. 

“Is this okay?” Arthur’s gaze flicked down towards Merlin’s lips. “I haven’t been out anywhere else for weeks.” 

Mouth suddenly dry, Merlin nodded. “Yeah,” he croaked. “More than.” 

“Oh, thank God.” Stepping forward, Arthur fitted his mouth to Merlin’s, his fingers entangled in the hair that fanned out about Merlin’s ears, in a kiss that turned from chaste to filthy in a matter of moments.

Arthur’s lips were soft and warm and his body firm, sport-hardened and muscled where it pressed against him. They lingered on the kiss, wet and open-mouthed, savouring the taste and the sheer heat of human contact, which had been missing for so long. The gentle force of it made Merlin’s pulse quicken and his heart hammer against his ribs. The movement of their lips was like a sweet, harmonious note while the bassline of his drumming heart provided an insistent depth that swept him along, letting out little appreciative sounds as he hummed against Arthur’s mouth. 

When Merlin pulled at Arthur’s damp shirt, extracting it from the tight hold of his jeans shorts, finding skin with his fingertips, the sudden burst of heat against his hands made him gasp out loud. Arthur seemed equally affected, letting out a deep moan that sent a surge of want stabbing into Merlin’s belly, the hard lines of his torso writhing beneath Merlin’s touch.

Merlin sent his hands lower, cupping the rounds of Arthur’s bum, kneading them appreciatively. “Your arse,” he gasped. “God. You’ve got no idea how much I’ve…” 

“Too much talking,” growled Arthur. He stepped abruptly out of their embrace and tugged Merlin along behind him towards Merlin’s cottage. 

And with that, the question of how to pass the time during the rest of the pandemic was finally answered. 

The next morning when Merlin woke up, he was lying on his side with a heavy body draped along his back. The heat was like a furnace and his arm had gone to sleep. 

Arthur had flung one burly arm casually across Merlin’s torso while a leg, prickly with sweaty hairs, pinned Merlin’s hip to the mattress. It was like being surrounded by a hot, muscular, blond, snoring rug. Merlin stirred, flexing his arm to try to get some feeling back into his hand. 

The snoring stopped abruptly, and the grip on Merlin’s body tightened, pulling him in closer.

“Stay there, _Mer_ lin,” murmured Arthur. “It’s nice.”

So, Arthur was a cuddler, was he? Smiling softly, Merlin pulled Arthur’s arm in closer to his chest and relaxed into his embrace. Despite being unable to move, and uncomfortably hot beneath the duvet, Merlin had never felt more at peace.

***THE END***


	13. EPILOG: NEVER INTRODUCE A NEW CHARACTER IN THE EPILOG

“These roads are even worse than the ones in Oxfordshire!” Morgana slowed her Mini Cooper to a crawl to negotiate the speed bump, which had a pothole on the other side the size of her spare wheel, and winced as it rocked over the other side. “If I’d known I would have bought a Range Rover.” 

“Are you sure this is okay?” Gwen was worrying at her lip in that adorable way that she had, the one that kicked in when she was concerned for someone’s welfare. “What if Arthur is out? I really think we should have called to let him know. What if he’s--” 

“Oh, honestly Gwen,” replied Morgana airily. “Arthur won’t mind. I’m his sister! We’re allowed to meet up with people from other households, as long as it’s outside and we stay socially distanced.”

“But Arthur hates surprises. He’s a planner, Morgana, you know that.” 

“Well, he should have answered one of my numerous phone calls then, shouldn’t he?” Morgana said. “Besides which, Arthur needs to be spontaneous once in a while, it’s good for him. Jesus! Don’t they pay council tax around here?” This last outburst was directed at yet another pothole, which she had to swerve to avoid, because it looked deep enough to swallow up half the car. “Why did Arthur have to rent a place in such a god-forsaken part of the country?” 

“I think it’s rather charming!” said Gwen, smiling. “And it’s certainly a change from that horrible ostentatious flat he had in Mayfair.” 

“I can’t argue with that,” said Morgana, peeping out at the countryside through the windscreen. 

It was rather pretty, with the patchwork of fields and the stream and the dark green forest adding a soothing presence along the way. The hedgerows were bursting with life - wildflowers and nascent berries and insects abounded, while the rolling hills were dotted here and there with little white sheep-shapes. It seemed at once both softer and more friendly than Oxfordshire, somehow. 

“In one hundred yards, you will have reached your destination,” said the Sat-Nav on Gwen’s phone. 

Sure enough, a few seconds later a quaint-looking pair of semi-detached cottages hove into view. A dazzling array of roses festooned the brick-and-flint exterior. A white picket-fence encircled the two properties; secure-looking twin gates allowed entry via short pathways. Outside one of them, a rusting bicycle was securely locked to a post. A crudely drawn rainbow on A4 paper adorned the upstairs window with “Thank You NHS” written above it in blue ink. Parked outside the other was Arthur’s red VW - a come-down after the Porsche, but she supposed there wasn’t much budget left after the grasping Sophia had taken him to the cleaners. 

As the two women got out of the car, a riot of loud barking erupted from this second cottage. Seconds later, Cavall bowled down the path, tail wagging furiously, all the while making such a racket that several startled pigeons flew up out of a nearby tree. A second or two later, this canine cacophony redoubled in volume as another doggy voice joined in from the neighbouring house, sending up plaintive howls to answer Cavall’s deeper bays. 

“Ahhh there’s my boy, Cavall,” said Morgana, delighted, as she walked up to the gate and put her hand on the latch. “Who’s a good boy then?” 

He leaped up and down at the sound of her voice, tail whipping back and forth, and sent up a long sort of howling woof that made her laugh out loud. Pressing through the gate, taking care not to let him out, she closed it behind Gwen who had knelt to fuss Cavall’s ears. 

“Hush, Cavall,” said Gwen, stroking his head and body before giving his back a pat. “It’s only us! Don’t make such a big fuss, you silly sausage.” 

But instead of hushing, Cavall redoubled his frenzied barking. 

“Ah, no, you mentioned the  _ s _ word,” said a new voice. A man that Morgana had never seen before was standing in the doorway of Arthur’s house, smiling indulgently at Cavall. “He’ll never shut up now!” 

“The  _ s _ word?” Gwen’s forehead puckered in puzzlement. 

“You know,” said the man, mouthing the word “sausage” amid the clamour of baying. 

“Oh, you mean saus--” 

“Shhh!” The man held a forefinger to his lips. “Don’t say it! He goes mad for them. Mind you, he goes mad for anything edible, to be honest. He’s better than a vacuum cleaner. Which is a jolly good thing, because he has an actual phobia of actual vacuum cleaners. Or at least, he has a phobia of Hettie, Arthur’s vacuum cleaner. Which amounts to the same thing.”

“Can dogs even have phobias?” Nonplussed by this stranger’s knowledge of Arthur’s dog, Morgana looked him up and down. 

“Of course.” The man nodded. “They must be able to. Because Cavall has one. Irrefutable logic, you see.” 

He grinned, tapping his nose. He had a dazzling smile, one that made his eyes dance with mischief and a little dimple pop in his cheek. 

“And you are?” said Morgana, eyes narrowing, finding herself charmed against her better judgment. 

“Oh, sorry. I’m Merlin. Arthur’s um… neighbour.”

“I  _ see _ ,” said Morgana archly. 

She had not missed the tell-tale  _ um _ . She eyed the now-blushing man with a growing sense of curiosity. He was slender, his build accentuated by his ancient pair of faded boot-cut jeans. A wild thatch of wavy black hair fanned out around his head like a bush. 

“Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Arthur’s  _ um  _ neighbour.” she said as soon as she was sure that he was thoroughly uncomfortable under her scrutiny. In her experience, it was a bad idea to make men feel comfortable. Always best to let them know who was boss. “I’m Morgana, Arthur’s  _ um  _ sister. And this is Gwen, my  _ um _ fiancée.” 

“Oh, no need to introduce yourselves,” he replied, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame. “I recognise Gwen from her numerous fabulous videos. Your recipe for focaccia is fantastic, by the way!”

“Oh, thank you!” cried Gwen, with a big beaming smile. She clapped her hands. “Did you try it with rosemary?” 

“I did! And I made Arthur buy some sea-salt. He made such a fuss, but he loved it.” 

“I know, it makes a huge difference…” 

Morgana rolled her eyes. Gwen was such a pushover. Well, Merlin would not win her over so easily. 

“And Morgana, I knew it was you straight away anyway because you remind me of Arthur.” 

“I don’t look anything like my brother,” she said waspishly.

“Ah. No. But you remind me of him in… other ways.” 

“Pray tell.” 

“Well.... for example, the first time he met me, he looked at me just like you are right now.” 

“And how exactly is that?” said Morgana, eyes narrowing even further. 

“As if I were an interesting specimen of mollusc that he’d like to squash with his shoe.” 

Gwen snorted behind her hand.

“Thankfully he warmed to me eventually. Anyway,” he looked over his shoulder, a faint grin flashing across his face before he turned back to them. “Looks like Arthur won’t be long, he’s just um… changing.” 

“Heaven forbid we should see him  _ um  _ unchanged,” Morgana murmured. “We’ll just let ourselves into the back garden, then.” She flashed him her most shark-like grin. “Mine’s a black coffee. Sweetened with sugar. And Gwen will have a loose-leaf Earl Grey tea.” 

“Of course, Your Majesty.” Merlin did a little mock bow. “Your wish is my command.” 

“And Aithusa will have a bowl of water,” Morgana added. 

“Aithusa?” 

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Blinking innocently at him, Morgana beckoned to Gwen, who shuffled gingerly through the gate, holding up their dog-carrying bag. 

Aithusa’s enquiring head poked out. 

Instantly, Merlin’s face displayed wreaths of beaming smiles that Morgana couldn’t help finding disarming, especially as they were aimed at her gorgeous little angel. 

“Oh, aren’t you precious?” he cooed. “Can I pet her?” 

Aithusa was a hairless Chinese Crested dog with adorably fluffy ears and a mottled, pale-brown and white, fur-free body. She’d entered their household a mere three weeks previously. Morgana had fallen instantly in love, and was beginning to use Aithusa’s good favour as a yardstick by which to judge the quality of a person. 

Good humans adored Aithusa, like she did. And judging by the coo-ing and petting that was going on, it did look like Merlin might be all right, after all. 

It took a few minutes before they were ready to head off round the corner of the house to Arthur’s petite back garden. Merlin disappeared through an open door into the house, yelling for Arthur, with Cavall in his wake. Meanwhile, Morgana and Gwen sat at one end of a large wooden picnic table that smelt of pine. The sun was beating down on the garden, and all around them rose a twitter of birds that had started up a few moments after all Cavall’s bellowing and barking had died down. It was quite peaceful and a far cry from Arthur’s previous London pad. 

“So what do you think?” Morgana murmured out of the corner of her mouth. 

“Not a bad place to end up being quarantined, is it?” Gwen pushed her hair out of her eyes and blinked up at the perfect blue dome of the sky. She was heart-stoppingly gorgeous in her pretty yellow dress with the matching yellow bandanna that was failing to keep her hair out of her face. “What?”

“Hmm?” said Morgana, lost for a moment in the warmth of Gwen’s smile. 

“You’re distracted.” 

“It’s your fault for being too pretty.” 

“Stop it! You’re pretty!” 

“You’re prettier!”

This went on for a happy moment or two before Morgana, with regret, turned back to the matter at hand. “I meant, what do you think of Merlin?” 

Gwen giggled. “Oh! Merlin. Well, he seems to have the measure of you and Arthur, doesn’t he?” 

“Is that a good thing?”

“I don’t know why you even have to ask!” Gwen said. “I like him. I like him a lot.  _ Aithusa  _ likes him.” 

“That’s good,” said Morgana, “because I have a feeling we might be seeing a lot of him from now on.” 

The sun really was beautifully warm. Kicking off her Jimmy Choos, Morgana stretched out her feet to enjoy the sensation of cool grass between her toes. She pulled her sunglasses down onto her face from where they had been holding her hair back, letting her hair drape over the back of the chair, and sighed contentedly. 

“Now you’re the one who’s being distracting, showing off your toes like that,” Gwen said in a husky voice.

With a sly grin, Morgana crossed her legs and leaned back a little further so that the chair’s front two legs lifted. “I can be a tease too, you know.” 

“Ugh, you two are disgusting,” interrupted a familiar voice. “Put your bloody feminine wiles away.”

Abruptly, Morgana let the chair back down with a snap and scowled up at her brother to disguise the affection that burst in her heart. God, when was the last time she had seen him in the flesh? It must have been three months ago. He looked good - relaxed and contented in a way that he had lost during the last few months of his marriage, with an outdoor tan adding a hint of warmth to his forearms and face. 

“Arthur,” Morgana said as coolly as she could, although she couldn’t help smiling a little because it was just so damn good to see him.

“Morgana,” Arthur replied. “Good of you to drop by. Some warning might have been nice. You might have interrupted something.” Cavall was by his side, clutching some sort of toy in his mouth. Behind them both stood Merlin, carrying a tray of drinks. 

“Pfft. We’re family,” said Morgana.

“Good lord,” said Arthur, looking at Aithusa. He smirked, which meant he was just about to crack a supremely unfunny joke. “What’s that? Have you brought your pet rat?”

“Pet rat?” With a horrified gasp, Morgana covered Aithusa’s ears with her hands. “Don’t listen to the nasty man, sweeting!”

Gwen cleared her throat and gave Morgana a pointed look, which meant  _ be nice _ . “Hi Arthur,” she said. 

“Gwen.” Arthur’s expression warmed and he stepped forward as if to kiss his soon to be sister-in-law on the cheek before checking himself. “Sorry, I can’t give you a kiss, I’m afraid. But it’s lovely to see you. I see you’ve met Merlin.”

“Hi again!” Merlin put the tray down on the table and set out some tea cups and a large tea-pot that Morgana recognised as Arthur’s - rescued from the Mayfair flat, no doubt. “It’s so wonderful to have guests after all this time! Not that it isn’t nice being with Arthur, of course, but I feel like we’ve been quite cut off from the world. Here is your tea, Gwen. And your coffee.”

“Thank you,” murmured Gwen. 

“Freya, come and meet our guests! Water for you!” He whistled. 

In response, an extremely shaggy but docile dog came out of the back door. Morgana recognised her from Arthur’s videos. This must be Freya, and she must be Merlin’s dog… the final slot of a puzzle slotted into place in Morgana’s mind. 

“Ohh!” Gwen made a little kissing sound against her teeth and bent towards the dog. “Aren’t you lovely! Come and say hi to Aithusa!” 

Freya, after looking up at her master as if to check, trotted over and licked Gwen’s hand then sniffed at Aithusa’s nose. Aithusa yipped and tried to leap free of the bag.

“Can I let her out?” said Gwen. “She’s very calm, honestly!” 

“Of course.” Merlin replied. He darted a quick look at Morgana and Arthur before adding, “hey, do you want to come and have a look down Arthur’s garden? I’m sure the dogs would love to join us. It’s not very long, I’m afraid, but if she’s lucky she might see a squirrel and that always gives Freya and Cavall a lot of entertainment..” 

“She’d love that.” Gwen beamed. 

The two of them set off down the lawn, dogs frolicking around their ankles, leaving Morgana alone with Arthur. 

“You need a haircut,” said Morgana.

“So do you.” Arthur grinned smugly back at her from behind a pair of mirrored Aviators that would have looked ostentatious in the 1980s. 

“Still taking your fashion tips from a bunch of washed-up footballers with no style and even less talent, I see,” Morgana said, lifting her chin. 

“Still taking your verbal style from an ancient book of Dorothy Parker quotes, I see.” Although Arthur’s answering eye-roll was hidden behind the sunglasses, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t see it. “Your dog is ugly but cute. It suits you.”

“Your boyfriend seems surprisingly tolerable,” she rejoindered.

He pulled a face. “You’re annoying.”

“You love me, really.” 

“I do.”

“I’ve missed your annoying face, Wotsit.” 

Her sudden desire to hug Arthur was overwhelming. His broad chest had always been the best place for comforting hugs. But hugs were forbidden, so instead Morgana blinked back a surge of unwelcome tears. Damn them! She may be wearing sunglasses, but that was no excuse for smudging her mascara.

“I’ve missed you too,” he replied. He picked up her Varenne handbag from the table and offered it to her at arm’s length. “I’ll bet you have some tissues in here.”

She grabbed it from him, scowling as she rummaged and sniffed before fishing out a clean tissue and blowing her nose. Damn him for knowing her so well. Damn him!

From down the garden, happy barking noises in three different tones - one deep (Cavall’s), one melodious (Freya, no doubt) and one high-pitched and, Morgana would admit only in the depths of her mind, a tiny bit yappy but nonetheless beloved (Aithusa). 

“You look so much better,” she said eventually, having achieved some equilibrium although she still ached to touch Arthur. His was such a sturdy, uncomplicated presence. Seemingly complex problems just melted away under the weight of his sheer solidity. “I’m glad.” 

“Yeah. Sophia had me tying myself in knots.”

“And Merlin?” 

“Merlin.” A soft smile crept across his face as he gazed down the garden. “Yeah. He’s…” Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know how to describe him.” 

“He’s good for you.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, that just about sums it up. He’s good for me. Just like Gwen is good for you. You’ve mellowed.” 

“How dare you?” But she smiled, tacitly acknowledging the truth of his statement. 

They both looked down the garden where Merlin and Gwen were talking nineteen to the dozen as if they had become instant best friends, while Cavall and Freya barked enthusiastically up a tree. 

“Premier League starts up again in a couple of weeks,” Arthur added, wistfully. “I’ll be back at work soon.” 

“Yeah,” said Morgana. “My office is reopening, too. It’s been nice at home with Gwen, but I’m looking forward to getting back to real life.” 

“And the puppy?” 

“Hmm? Aithusa?” Morgana lifted her eyebrows. 

Arthur nodded. 

“Well, when you stopped sending me videos of Cavall, I sort of missed him. The stupid mutt. So I bought a puppy of my own. Gwen adores her. And unlike Cavall, she’s highly intelligent.”

“I can see that.” Arthur laughed out loud, that annoyingly charming boyish laugh of his that made everything seem all right, even if the world had gone to pot with viruses and wildfires and hurricanes and what not. 

“What do you mean? What’s so funny?” Instantly suspicious, Morgana frowned, looking around. “Come to mention it, where is Aithusa anyway?” She whistled. “Precious angel? Aithusa?” she whistled again. 

“Oh, I think you’ll find her easily enough!” said Arthur, nodding down at the decking as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Hey, this would make great footage.”

Puzzled, Morgana looked where he was pointing the phone’s camera. Her gaze eventually landed on her discarded shoes, where a horrific sight met her eyes. 

“No!” she gasped. “No! Bad angel! Oh, Aithusa, how could you! Naughty, naughty girl, mummy is very cross! Bad girl! Bad, bad dog!”

For Aithusa must have broken off from the others, returned to the deck, and was now busy doing a widdle in Morgana’s extremely fashionable and highly expensive hot pink suede Jimmy Choos. 

“And here you see a highly intelligent dog,” murmured Arthur in his best commentating voice, the irritating bastard. “Relieving herself in a convenient location.” 

“Arthur, stop filming!” Morgana yelled, lunging at him to get the phone away from him. “You are no longer my brother. I disown you, you wretched man!”

“Remember to maintain social distancing, Morgana!” he yelled, backing away, still laughing fit to bust. 

“I’ll social distance you, you utter git!” She dashed after him, caring little for whether the grass shredded her favourite stockings, murder in her heart. “Give me that phone! Give it to me! I demand you delete that footage immediately! I take it all back! You are my least favourite brother ever!” 

“Oh this is good, Morgana!” he rejoindered, managing somehow to keep on filming whilst at the same time dodging out of reach. “Although I think your shriek there reached a frequency that could only be heard by the dogs!” 

“I do not shriek!” she shrieked.

“Oof! There you go again!” Arthur made a show of wincing, holding his ear with the hand that wasn’t holding his phone. 

She made a swipe for his phone but the prat, veteran of many Pendragon sibling fights, was holding it up too high for her to reach. Unable to stop him filming, she attacked him with her handbag instead. “Social distancing or no social distancing, you are cruising for a bruising, matey.”

And even many weeks later, when the final footage of the incident on her new channel got over thirty million hits, she still never could watch it without shuddering. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters, I'm not getting paid.


End file.
